How much?

How much are you going to make from it?

How much is it going to take?

How much sleep, how much soul, how much sanity

Before they say… “now that’s a living.”

*

How much is your passion worth

When they price it in paychecks and pound signs?

When they call your dream “just a hobby”

Until it buys a house?

*

How much is your body worth?

In its beauty?

In its function?

In output,

in long shifts,

in labour,

Till your spine curves to capitalism’s favour.

*

How much this?

How much that?

How much are you worth

If you never make it “big”?

*

I once just wanted to write.

To bleed on paper and feel whole again.

But the clock struck reality:

Time is money, they said.

And I swerved,

Completely off the path I yearned for

into something… else.

*

Now, every sentence I speak,

I tread carefully.

Don’t wanna waste a minute

Being the girl with her head in a book.

If I must leave my mark, I must follow the rules:

Weigh every word.

Price every step.

Even when my heart whispers, go this way.

*

Because I don’t have a say,

some journeys leave no trails,

Just loads of receipt.

Some dreams?

A debt to fulfill.

Some desires ?

An invoice within.

*

And nobody asks,

“How much can I give, be, become?”

Just,

“How much is my return?”

*

Not

“How much do you love it?”

Not

“Does it heal you?”

Just this never-ending loop of:

How much? How much? How much…?

*

And I am tired of the transactions.

Of measuring worth in weightless digits.

Of auctioning souls for validation.

*

So this poem…

This poem is not for sale.

My writing isn’t measured by likes on a page,

or how much it makes me.

It is not profitable.

It is not marketable.

It is just me.

*

I have made poetry a path,

they told me would leave no trace,

But I cherish this priceless journey I make.

*

My heart spills here,

without price tag…

a journal read for all to hear.

*

And I don’t measure its value

By how much it pays me,

But by how much it relieves me.

*

And if that makes me worthless,

Then so be it.

I’d rather be rich in meaning

Than bankrupt in being.