To Repay

There's small solace
In ingratitude;
Little love
In cold calculations
On worth and wealth
Scribbled short in someone else's ledgers.
“Don't worry on my account”
Is a debtor's disguise,
Or an air of affluence in affective amity.

I never bought into the notion that you should pay your dues
In voice or incognito.
Instead I purchased
Nonsense with ducan'ts
For the price of a life spent saving my self
For a silent auction to be held
Once we've bid this world farewell.
An emptor who heeded caveats
Of thought in lieu of feeling.

It's so easy to check in,
To share a saccharine smile
With empty eyes
That do not bare or bond.
So easy to feign interest
In the small changes
While the wages of reticence,
The cost of too little, too late
Force a soul to take stock
And sell too soon.

Yet I look her way
And see nothing
But a glimpse of gold.

It would be so facile
To feign a friendly thought.
But though we laugh,
Though we smile,
Though we nod in accord to custom,
You do not take what's easy
But give more than I could ever hope
To repay.