I know the price of everything and the value of nothing at all,
I know what a handshake costs in a hotel hallway by the wall,
I know what a friendship runs if you need a favor to get through,
I know what a reputation costs when you’re deciding what to do.
My father had a saying he’d repeat until it wore him out:
son, the free things in this life — that’s what it’s all about.
I smiled and called it beautiful and drove away in my new car,
left him in his driveway with his garden and his evening star.
I put a dollar figure on the years I spent in school at night,
a cost-benefit analysis of every sacrifice I’d write,
the time I didn’t spend on things that didn’t turn a rate of pay,
I depreciated all of it and called it overhead — call it grey.
The woman that I loved at thirty wasn’t in the plan I’d laid,
she wanted a life I couldn’t build on the salary I made,
so I worked instead of loving her and lost her to someone patient and slow,
who gave her what she needed — what I couldn’t let myself know.
I hired people and I fired people like they were line items on a sheet,
I knew their fully loaded costs, their benefits, the complete suite,
I didn’t know their children’s names or what they drove or if they prayed,
I knew their productivity metrics and the price that they were paid.
I justified the layoffs with efficiency and market forces wide,
wrote it in an email with a legal team review beside,
I never looked them in the eye when giving them the news they’d dread,
I had HR do the walking and I moved my meetings up instead.
My net worth hit eight figures in the year I turned forty-four,
and I set a new target for the year after and the year after more,
I bought a second home because the first one felt too small a score,
renovated both of them and hardly walked through either door.
The art on the walls was chosen by a consultant for investment yield,
the furniture was specified for resale value firmly sealed,
even the books on the shelf were there for how they’d photograph and show,
and I lived inside a showroom, walking carefully down the road.
My doctor told me in a quiet office tone my blood pressure was a sign,
that the body keeps a ledger too, and mine was crossing a dangerous line,
he said stress, lifestyle, the whole package needs a reassessment here,
I said send me the bill for the extra time and I’ll check back in next year.
I priced out every intervention, weighed the cost of slowing down,
the opportunity cost of stepping back, the risk of losing ground,
decided that the numbers didn’t justify a major change,
drove to my next meeting feeling something I couldn’t arrange.
They say you can’t take it with you and I know that old refrain,
but the rich among us spend a fortune just to cheat that truth in vain,
the trusts and the foundations and the vanity that outlives the man,
the stadium with your word on it, the hospital wing in your plan.
I want my mark on something that will last past when I’m gone and through,
I want to buy a kind of permanence I know I never knew,
I’ve priced it out in zeros and I’m working through the calculation,
I know the price of everything — I just can’t find the right foundation.