Everyone knows
priceless value
whatever Mastercard can’t buy
This American boy
raised on oatmeal and
Ayn Rand propoganda
He cannot receive or accept any gifts from me
Because receiving in earnest
makes any decent man indebted
by some force, not dollars,
but by some deeper universal law,
that binds us all in the economic exchanges
between sugar and oxygen, water and waste
He fervently fights to be certain
that whatever I do, I don’t do for him.
Lest it be an act of care,
a desire not for self alone, but for the bond that forms from giving,
to give, a giving that is receiving
He grips tightly to the boundaries
between him and I
To receive would dissolve
his self and my self
into the amorphousness of
darling human
you are me and I am you
He will not participate in the exchange of priceless gifts
He will not give me the satisfaction of receiving by giving
Little does he know of worlds
where my desire and your desires converge into
the singular desire for you to have what you desire and your desire
for me to have what I desire.
Where the things we thought we wanted are only excuses for mutual joy
which we realize we give each other anyway