Gig Economy

For $5 I will write you a poem
For $5 you will pretend it is yours
For $5 I will sell you the blood in my veins
What is $5 anyway for a fun experiment?

We take our poor and make them poorer,
call it opportunity,
call it freedom,
present this one bright shining example of digging deep and
striking gold
You just have to want it,
man,
You just have to work real hard for it don't you know
this is the American
Dream.

Money bleeds from me
not in five-dollar increments but
hundreds
thousands
the only difference between me and the
homeless man downstairs is one
month's rent
stuffed under my mattress.
His name is Derek, but
it's a name that doesn't fit right.
He wears a black leather jacket,
combs his hair,
sleeps in his wheelchair,
only asks you for money if you
look him in the eye. 
He spends most of his days by this stoop,
some nights,
sometimes he's gone for weeks I don't know where
he goes. Do five dollars look
different
in his hand than mine?

Did someone promise him the
world
if only he
made a small investment 
too?

I've sold my life for beads,
as slippery as a rug
pulled from under you.