sometimes I get angry all over again
even now
waking up in the middle of the night with the thought
*thousands of dollars*
like a heart gasp
the thought that the pattern happened more than once
the shame in generosity
the way holding someone else's hand meant I could never get ahead
the way the man who read my palm, voluntarily, at the corner store
knew and warmed me, even
and still
my heart is a calculator who will wake me up at night
to tell me something isn't right
years, even a decade, after the subtraction
