“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” ~Honoré de Balzac

There once was a man who had nothing at all,

not a dime, not a penny, not a cent to his name.

He was born in poverty, raised by the streets,

but he swore in his youth

he wouldn’t die by them too.

His pockets were shallow,

although his dreams were intrinsically,

elaborately, and vividly deep.

The faces—both familiar and unrecognized—

passed by him with masks of disapproval,

doubting his very existence.

Little did they know

his ambitions were only temporarily

unnoticed.

All he needed was someone to believe in him,

and one day he met the girl

with wild hair and rubies for lips.

She saw him as he was

and she took him just the same,

with nothing at all.

He spent his days singing of their future:

“One day I will make it big, my dear.

One day they’ll see…”

And she did…

She believed.

And together,

with golden wedding bells

and something old and something blue,

they built a life

with white picket fences.

What he once wished for

in the dead of the night

was now coming true,

filling him with green…

green as an ivy of envy.

The walls of his home grew taller and wider,

And the land grew ten sizes larger

while the sparkling rock on her finger

glittered a little brighter.

As it often is,

pictures are never perfect,

only capturing the moment

when people say cheese,

rarely reveal their secrets.

Until one day,

they were replaced on the walls

with a woman much younger.

And then another.

Each doll lined up,

waiting for the chance

to fill the space

with something they believed

only money could buy.

And the children—

he always forgot the children,

until they became convenient.

Over time,

the lines on his face began to tell the story

of what he never gave,

but always took.

As his breaths grew lighter

with each passing day,

his hair turned grayer—

but it never stopped his greed,

for he was a gambling man.

It didn’t matter:

the women grew younger,

the booze got stronger,

and the money never ran out.

The ones he had once left behind,

in the building of his kingdoms,

let go of the faint memories of him

just as he had long ago.

As his mind began to fade,

so too did the small well of love

that remained for him.

And as he lay alone,

on silk sheets as thin as his skin,

he took his last breath

and took his last gambled with the afterlife.

The cost of his fortune

was the shades of his authenticity.

For a man who once has everything,

Now has nothing at all

Shay

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Thank you so much for reading my poem. I am trying my hand at different formats of writing. I love writing essayettes but I also love a good poem or parable. Anyway, enough of my rambling. Let me know what you think in the comments? Do you agree? Do you disagree?

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