Money That Never Stays
There is a bitter kind of silence that comes with payday. You wait all month for this day, hoping for a little relief, a little reward for the hours you gave away. But when the number lands in your account, it is already spoken for—claimed by bills, by promises made in harder times, by the weight of yesterday. You worked hard, you gave your energy, your time, your life, and yet you stand here with empty hands, not even enough to fill your own plate. It feels less like earning and more like just passing money through, never keeping any for yourself.
Money That Never Stays
The date arrives, the numbers finally show,
The fruit of all the seeds I’ve worked to sow.
I dreamed of little things I could procure,
A little extra food, a comfort, sure.
But every coin is claimed before it’s mine,
Chasing the debts that stretch in endless line.
It passes through my palms like running sand,
Leaving me with an empty, open hand.
I gave my days, my strength, my very best,
Yet still I stand with nothing left to rest.
Not even enough to fill the cupboard shelf,
No portion saved to feed my own poor self.
Is this the cycle that I’m bound to keep?
To work so hard, yet go to sleep so deeply
In want, in lack, in struggle day by day?
Where does it go? And where is my reward?
I hold my breath and start the count again,
Waiting for a change that seems so far from when.
Working to pay, just barely getting by,
With a tired heart and a heavy, hopeless sigh.
It is heartbreaking to work so hard and have nothing to show for it but a list of things cleared and a stomach that still feels the pinch. Please remember: this is not a measure of your worth. Your value is not in what you keep, but in the effort you give, the resilience you show, and the fact that you keep going even when the math never adds up in your favour. You are doing the best you can with a burden too heavy for anyone to carry.