I’m looking for a bank
to deposit this cache of sorrow,
an impenetrable safe,
so a thief can’t steal my hard earned stash,
try to convince me I can live on happiness alone.
I need a vault,
something I can shut and walk away from,
leave my interest to an expert to take over balancing
the influx of deposits and withdrawals,
try to make sense of the chaotic records I’ve kept, amend my unsuccessful budgeting of grief.
I think it must be the unpredictable market that left me reeling,
even though I thought I understood investing was never easy, predictable or safe?
But the foaming flux of dividends slamming into me over and over again with the force of the ocean was too much to take;
jaws snapping like a rabid dog while I tried to stay afloat, still holding the burden of wealth above my head to keep it dry.
It was the struggle that stripped me of my greed, my want, my pride.
And then, just when I’d get use to living in a state of functional rigor mortis, stoically bracing for impact; an options trader
the tide would turn, recede, barely lick the milky shore as innocuous as a kitten while I find my feet, dry off in the bright sun,
heartache churning in the distance, a storm collecting speed.
It’s the wrenching swings between accumulation and loss I can’t take anymore; I don’t have the stomach for it.
I no longer crave the thrill of gambling; the way things can turn on a dime,
And I wonder how I ever could have loved the abrupt change in weather patterns, the fury of a rouge wave?
I don’t need a night class, or a podcast, or want an intervention to change my financial forecast.
I’ve lost interest in my net worth.
I just need a bank.
A brick and mortar building; somewhere solid I can walk into
and unburden myself from the heavy gold of remorse,
so I can live like I long to, as destitute as a pauper,
weightless and free.
-Joanie Ellis Tidwell
