True Life: I’m A Dollar Bill

I’ve traveled so long and far that I don’t even remember where I started or where I was first printed. In New York, there was a man who wanted me so badly that he shot another guy just to get me. I still have faint traces of his bloodstains on me. A Mayor in Georgia spilled some of his morning coffee on me from a styrofoam cup, the same kind of cup that I was stuffed in for a homeless man in Chicago. I’ve been crumpled and balled up, folded and creased in angles that felt degrading. I’ve been molested by white fingers, black fingertips, tan Florida touches, cold Maine caresses. There were wealthy, soft hands that smelled like mint and sanitizer, and then there were calloused fingers covered in oil and dirt, reeking of labor, blemishing me in gritty evidence of my captivity. I’ve met celebrities, murderers, cops. Politicians, cab drivers, cross country skiers. A man in Louisiana used me to buy love from a prostitute. Then a prostitute in Louisiana used me to buy love from a drug dealer. There was a woman in Dallas who spent me on a private investigator to find her long lost sister. I’m not sure if they ever found her? But I did a few years later, under the golden blaze of a California sun. There were businessmen who would throw me carelessly at strippers, strippers who would spend me on college textbooks, booksellers who would spend me on company debt, debt that would fill the pockets of businessmen who just threw me at the strippers again.

It was a cycle, just like my life. Wealthy women in mansions would spend me so thoughtlessly like I was one of a million – as if my life was meaningless. Just a leaf off a tree, another piece of paper torn out of a notebook, balled up and tossed out, like a journal entry that was better off forgotten. I was insignificant to them. Yet to others, my faded green skin was beautiful. I was their world. Poor men with tarnished, gloved fingers accustomed to holding bent cigarettes instead of hope– they treated me like a savior. A messiah. They would beg for me and drop their dignity on the ground so they had a free hand to grab me with. Me. One of a million. Enough to brighten their day. They would hold me in their pockets long enough to forget what empty ones felt like. With me, they suddenly had value, they were worth something. I was worth something. They ached and longed for me like a neglected lover. But like most love, once they had me in their clutches long enough, I slowly lost my charm. Eventually, I was no longer seen for what I was, but for what I wasn’t. One of a million just like me. Not a 5, or a 20, or a 50 – just a 1. Dead faces that all looked the same. So it goes.

Maybe one day, someone will keep me. Maybe they will accidentally drop me between the cushions of their couch and I’ll spend the rest of my life with loose change and other possessions that are worthless enough to fall out of someone’s pocket and never be accounted for. A fossil of our economy. Or, maybe one day, I’ll find myself on fire and be slowly eaten alive by crackling orange flames – like my other paper relatives. I’ll be burned down to ashes, one of a million particles just like me blown into the wind. Scattered all over America.

Someday in the future, maybe I’ll be the dust collecting on your picture frames, and you’ll blow me off your memories during Spring cleaning when you feel like being nostalgic. The frozen images that depict important chapters of your story. Your life. I’ve come to terms finally with the realization that my life– my story, may never be heard or recognized. Insignificant me, one of a million just like me. I doubt anyone cares much. All those tiny encounters that are taken for granted. But I’d like to think I made a difference. I’d like to think something small on a dark day might be enough to brighten it. A single dollar, a single act, a single smile, a single touch. And maybe a single uplifting day might be enough to change a week, or a year, or a life. And maybe that’s all it takes. A single, seemingly trivial moment… that ends up changing everything.

I’d like to think I was worth something.