I Am

To you –
the business I am in looks like the chocolate you eat for dessert or for when you feel “sad.”
It looks like the athletic shoes that you purchase every year when the old ones wear out.
It looks like the gold jewelry draped across your neck and dangling from your ears.

To me –
the business I am in looks like repeatedly forcing open a cocoa pod to reveal the sweet beans that I will never eat –
it feels like the sting of my fingers as my skin slowly deteriorates from sewing thousands of soles –
it smells like burning flesh when I get so tired that I don’t realize my fingers are too close to the flaming torch.

In your business –
a stock exchange looks like a system for buying and selling shares,
supply and demand exist as counterparts, providing the people with what they desire,
and a bank is a place to take out loans and store valuable commodities.

In my business –
A “stock” exchange is a system where humans are bought and sold – I am the share.
The demand is cheap goods and commercial sex with young children – I am the supply.
The bank hands out $32 billion dollars to purchase humans on a website - my body is the loan that will never be paid back.

When I get home from work I don’t pass food around the table with my family.
No, when I get “home” I don’t get food, and I am the one being passed around the room between men.

Value – a word you hear plenty in business.
Value – an entity of which I have none – anymore.
In your business, you sell a product.
In my business, I am the product.