We Pay — Poem
We Pay
We pay first in numbers
that look small when they are printed.
Rounded, adjusted, approved.
A line item slips through a vote
and lands, quietly, in a bill we will never see whole.
We pay in fragments.
In percentages shaved thin enough
no single cut feels fatal.
In fees that arrive dressed as necessity.
In interest that accrues while we sleep.
We pay in distance.
In places most of us will never stand
but learn to picture anyway —
maps reduced to color and movement,
names spoken only when something burns.
We pay in bodies we do not know
until we do.
A photograph, a folded flag,
a story retold until it sounds like meaning
instead of cost.
We pay in what gets postponed.
Bridges that hold until they don’t.
Classrooms stretched past capacity.
Care delayed until it becomes crisis.
We learn to call it timing.
We learn to wait.
We pay in language.
Words bent until they carry less weight.
Truth renegotiated until it cooperates.
We inherit phrases that soften what is happening
so it can continue.
We pay in the body.
In the constant scan for what might go wrong.
In the background noise of unease
that we learn to call normal.
In the way rest never fully lands.
We pay for what is undone.
For systems dismantled faster than they can be rebuilt.
For expertise replaced with confidence.
For damage measured later,
when it is harder to trace.
We pay across time.
Balances carried forward.
Decisions that outlive the hands that made them.
Children inheriting costs
they had no part in choosing.
We pay in ways that do not register as payment.
In what we stop expecting.
In what we stop asking for.
In the quiet recalibration of what is possible.
We pay, and we keep paying,
because the charge does not come all at once.
Because it is easier to absorb than to refuse.
Because by the time the total appears,
it no longer feels like a single decision.
The ledger is never shown in full.
Only portions. Only summaries.
Only enough to suggest movement
without revealing direction.
Still, the balance holds.
Not erased.
Not settled.
Carried.
~Drea
What are you absorbing right now that you know you shouldn’t have to?
How to Support My Work
Newly Published: THE EDGES OF ME: Emotional States Regulation Guide
Coming Soon: THE EDGES OF ME: Inner States Atlas
Or, if you’d like, you can support my work through Stripe with donations using the link above.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for any support you have given or may give.
You are greatly appreciated.