Envy

Envy

what I have

is better than yours

but I want yours too

<>

don’t be so selfish

so protective

think of the freedom

you’ll feel in letting go

of what you think you need

<>

I don’t need it myself

but that’s not relevant

I want it

you don’t deserve it

as much as I do

<>

your fearful needs

are not spiritually fulfilling

you have to empty your life

& there’s no better place

to empty

but here

<>

I can add it to the things

I want

that I have

that I don’t need

<>

keeping hold of it

is only a sign 

of your deep resentment

of my happiness

of my ability

to accept everything 

that comes my way

<>

you envy my power

to take what I want

from the likes of you

I have this memory of my boyhood, while I was still a single child, of being in the park trying to sail a plastic boat I got for a birthday. It was frustrating as there was another boy who had a better one & it floating along nicely. He came over to me & said “Give me back my boat!”

I told him it was mine & he began to cry & that I had taken his favorite boat. I pointed to his & said that one was his. He said that if I didn’t give back the stolen boat he’d call the police. I told him to call the police. To which he replied, keep your crappy boat. See if I care.’ I pulled my boat out of the water & thew it at him. “Here take it.”

My boat was already boring me because it didn’t float or move ‘properly.’ Once I got home I told my mom it had sank in the park pond. When I went though the park a week later I spotted my boat in a trash bin & left it there.

This piece is about that pull & push of wanting, getting, of having & being held captive by stuff while also about how we get manipulated into reluctant ‘generocity.’ It relishes the verbal spin of rationalization & victim blaming. To demonstrate you have the power to take something, not because you actually want it or have any need or use for it.

The piece echoes enlightened ‘gurus’ who stress the spiritual power of sacrifice while polishing the diamond ring you have to kiss as you make the sacrifice. Recently a major Canadian retailer asked its customers to donate their bonus points to charity because there is deep need to help the less fortunate. No mention of the fact that our points donation would become a charitable tax donation deduction for the corporation. 

The request also had a tasty subtext of not donating being a sign of our personal selfishness & greed. If people starve it’s our fault for not helping when given this opportunity. Sorry, but I’m keeping my points to redeem for overpriced cologne – if I’m greedy I want to smell good while I watch our culture sink into selfishness.