Piggy Bank Peace

Sometimes I wonder if peace finds me in its currency form. Coin after coin in a piggy bank, the rules of inflation enacting itself as if I would ever find it in surplus. 

I find myself a beggar, knees hitting the ground as I beg anyone, everyone for just a morsel. My hands are shaking, cup jingling in my palms, hoping, praying that I can pocket some and keep it for myself. 

Because when pennies go extinct, and cash grows more obsolete by the day, I discover that the peace I pocketed from the last time mom smiled at me diminishing away. 

Interest racks up, but nobody signed an IOU, and now I find myself lying on the side of the road. As strangers pass me by and the tip jar sits boldly in front of me at the diner where the lights flicker, I wonder if they have enough. Maybe they would need it more, and I could sacrifice a few dimes, even if it meant cracking open my piggy bank with a hammer, the pieces of porcelain so sharp I cry as I pry it open. 

But even when there’s a deficit, when I find myself rationing for each moment, telling people “I have no more liquidated assets,” the news turns on, and I realize I am wealthy. 

In fact, I am dirty and greedy. 

So greedy because schools are bombed, and children don’t have parents. Because someone left this universe in a place that wasn’t meant for departure. Here I scrambled for dollar bills, wishing that they littered the floor so I could have a moment just for myself, when somewhere else, they had never heard of a quarter. 

So instead I sit on the ground, surrounded by the only belongings I have ever known, and curl into a ball. 

I scramble for that currency, fighting until my plastic fake nails pop off, until I bleach my teeth so pale they buzz in the dead of night. I followed every step, everything everyone told me to do— I set up an account, I tried to keep it safe, I remembered everything I should, every rule ingrained into me— but at the end of the day I found my pockets empty, a hole in the bottom. Everything fell apart when I wasn’t even aware. All I did was turn on the TV to feel worse, my own soul rotting away inside of me as I ran faster, hoping I could keep up.