GREED

For those of us who see our country being torn asunder by the immense immoral gravity of the deadliest of the seven deadly sins.

It’s not the having, or the hoarding,
it’s a categorical thing, an abhorrence of less—
it’s the wanting,
wanting it all, wanting it all so much

you cease to care for that part of the all that
you already have,
and yet it’s the very same thing that you’re
wanting, and so
both in the end are worth nothing at all. The
absence is all

—don’t settle for anything less, just ultimates
and ultimatums—like losing your life in a haze of
regret
for what it is not, demanding the absolute way
it should be,

throwing away the wind, let’s say, because it’s at
home
and not at sea, wasting good days, depressed,
possessed by the best they could be—wanting it all,

ignoring the stars you’ve charted for years
simply because they aren’t all the rest.

(Artwork by Rini Price)