Money is rarely just money.
Its relationship to our identity
Is one few of us can openly admit
But one we all feel intimately.
All this talk of financial security
Doesn’t account for the phenomenon where
While we are on our way
To securing the bag
The bag itself has secured us,
Binding us to itself until we
Almost solely base our existence
On money
And the things it can give us.
So called concepts of financial freedom
Speak little of the horrors
Of a human heart that is bound tightly
By the constraints of financial expectation,
Measuring our very humanity
And the humanity of others
With money
Or the lack of it.
Perhaps another kind of freedom
Around money is in order,
A financial decoupling of sorts
Where money really is just money
And not a means of self-redemption from childhood traumas
Where we throw money at problems
That we refuse to face
Using it as a means to
Insulate ourselves
From inconvenient truths.
No, money is rarely just money
Indeed it is a salvation
And a damnation
All at once.