If I Were...

If I were a million dollars, I'd be afraid. Very afraid, and especially of me. Not the me who was a million dollars, no, but the me who is writing this. We can forget, sometimes, that there's someone behind these words--expressing something he hopes is deep, something strong, clear, vibrant, even just pretty... sometimes something that he doesn't even know, but is just stumbling over the smallest fragment of realization.

It'll be so small, too. An idea that rests on the tip of he tongue of a mayfly that's drifted to land on the tip of the tongue of an open-mouthed alzheimer patient who isn't sure if the pressure on his chest is cardiac arythmia or connected to the strange red-headed girl that the sexy nurse helps up onto his bed every Sunday afternoon at one. My, that's a long sentence--lovely?--but it won't by me dinner and certainly won't pay the rent. None of my words will, but that's probably why I'm glad I'm not a million dollars. I'd spend myself. Each word would have value and each letter a portion of it.

I.

Right there! That tiny little letter is a word, and it means something. Put a value to it, though. I. Is it worth ten bucks? Out of a million? I'd hope it was worth more. Doesn't "I" mean all of me? Shouldn't that one word mean everything, then? What if I wanted to write something fancy? Like... Mississippi? That's four of them, there. Four million dollars of me, and that's not even counting all the other letters. But, what does Mississippi mean to me? Is it worth four of me? If I can't express what I mean with a four-million-and-some-change dollar word, how can I hope to do it with anything else? But, that's why I'm glad I'm not a million dollars. My words and letters aren't worth much all on their own, so I can toss them around as much as I want until they earn their keep. I can litter them along the streets like too many dust bunnies under my kitchen table, or plot them out carefully like hobos who know the best places to catch an hour or two of sleep without being disturbed by the local cops. Hell, I can even try to arrange them into something clever about a million bucks and how as much as I'd love to have it, it'd make everything a good deal rougher to give any meaning.

No, I'll stay a dusty hobo dreaming about mayflies and elderly redheads who can't help but remember being set down on the bed of someone she remembers loving once a long time ago. That'll last.