ransom

11-30-21

Tell me. What is your price? Do you ask money or words? Is it groveling, a debt of language and power, or compensation for the extra monetary burden my existence in the world and my stumbling about in it has placed on you?

I first thought it was a password you sought, always tried to find exactly the right words, kept searching when you lashed out. No entry.

But there are no right words. Only wrong ones. And trying to repay my imagined debt in apologies only deepens the divide between us. Makes me feel smaller and you feel farther away. But you tell me money isn’t the way out, could never be exchanged for a human life, is not the point, but continue to talk about it first with my heart in front of you, bleeding.

I’m done guessing, so tell me, what price do I need to pay to be free.