Revenge Capitalism

Perhaps you are a well-adjusted white man with endless interests and laser focus, 

and perhaps you decide to learn investment strategies from a series of comprehensive podcasts 

while handwashing vintage Pyrex bowls, and perhaps you have many resulting conversations 

with your wife, and your wife’s friends, about solutions inherent to capitalism, really dig in

and explore how true capitalism is not the capitalism that fattens fortunes of the fortunate,

fucks and fractions bastards with less luck, no, not that one, the real one, the capitalism that saves.

Perhaps when your wife needs emotional capital after finding herself suddenly impoverished 

by an unexpected event, say, a psychic house fire, and she believes, perhaps unfairly, that you 

hold the capital she needs, that you will give her what she needs, invest in her, help recover 

her losses, since you are her husband, after all, and capital that is yours is hers  - is it not? - 

but instead you offer a loan, set interest rates astronomical, do not blink at your growing hunger 

for the profit bred from your supply and her demand, and not her tattered heart.

Who can blame you, really, for turning coin in the face of bald despair, and frankly, 

she’s better for it, forced to solve her own problem, pay her debts, become a notable competitor 

in an inescapable game, and check her out, she’s a better person now, cutthroat, invulnerable,

supplanting spiritual laziness with innovation, and with the help of her substantial reserve of friends

- the crones, not the cronies -  she gained more ground than anyone expected, 

and she is no longer impoverished but strong and good, and she grows like a tumor.

Then, unexpectedly, woefully, it was you who fell, an accident, say, a psychic wildfire, 

your knees punched with gravel, eyes lifted in supplication, and in that wild need for grace 

you are fortunate, for in her hands she holds what you need, for what is hers is yours, is yours, 

is yours, and she is good and strong, and she regards you with growing interest, 

a spider wrapping a fly, the machinery of her mind clicking and popping, her chest growing warm 

with opportunity, and sweet man, newly fallen with your tattered heart and bald despair,

she will make you pay.