So Riches Begat a Beggar

This one is so old that I hardly remember the person I was when I wrote it, but it has its loveliness.

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His existence was antithesis to rationality. He was so tall that his head vanished into the ground, and his kindly gaze burned with such fury that it bit with frost. The supreme beauty of his face, as though carved out of Greek marble, had been known to drive cities mad with its ugliness. So, when he walked, he made himself small. He made himself ordinary. He made himself one thing, at one time, and forgot the other–left it behind to be reattached later like the tip of a finger after the slip of a knife.

She loved him for what he was–a man–and she loved him for what he was not–for what he left behind himself to wander the plains in search of what it was to be. Yet, somewhere that she didn’t dare look, she knew those other pieces were not far behind, ready to once again take their place: the carelessness to his love; the ugliness to his beauty; the wanderlust to his loyalty.

He loved her for what she was–a woman–and he loved her for what she was not–those parts that she locked away in the hope that she would not scare away too soon the man she loved. He would have coaxed those parts out into the open, and cherished them the way that they deserved, but he could not bring himself to do it. Had he been whole, he would have loved as he despised; he would have taken glee in the sadness that her eyes evoked in him, yearning and hoping for a feast of love greater than the appetizers he had to offer. But he was not whole. He only hated himself for starving her, and her hunger brought him a sadness that he could not scrub away because he knew that he could not give her more. He could not love the parts of her that she hid away from him–could not bring himself to coax them from their hiding places, because he felt those severed parts of himself waiting around the corner, and knew that they would return soon to take him back.

So, wrapped up in building the “good life,” he forgot to make her happy, and something that was bright and pure smoldered down to embers that resented, though they still dreamed to blaze. She went off to find cream and honey, cinnamon and sweet red fruit, and she found it while he was sitting on his hoard, waiting for the severed parts of himself to come and steal him away from her, and hoping that, when they did, at least he would have built something good while goodness lasted.

She found it, and found that it was sweet, for woman cannot live on bread alone. He would have made himself a pauper, had he seen her hunger–heard her pleading for more– but he was too blind to see that she was starving. So riches begat a beggar.