Money muffles passion, you see.
We cling to it, weeping,
leaking weird nouns and verbs
about how we cherish
the cool cocoon of cold hard cash,
forgetting about the shallow grave
where we killed and buried our art.

We forget, amidst the chatter
and the chaos and the fodder
and become an only sometimes-true friend
to our notebook and our paintbrush;
we become the boring, wretched thing
we used to hate for being false
and turn ugly, quickly.

It’s terrifying the flip-flops
that a rumbling hunger will make.