What My Debt Bought

She sent me a photo this morning—

a painting, something she made,

and in the caption she mentioned

it was the palette knife set,

the one I owed her for,

the money I borrowed and never

quite got around to paying back.

I stared at the image,

trying to calculate

how much of that painting was mine,

how much of her small success

I had funded by accident,

by negligence,

by letting time pass

until the debt became a different kind of currency.

The painting is good.

Better than good.

It's the kind of thing

that makes you see

what someone is capable of,

what they might have done

all along if they'd had the right tools.

Now I know what my absence bought.

Now I know what it costs

to let someone else spend your money

without asking.

She didn't ask for it back.

She didn't mention it was overdue.

She just sent the photo

like we were friends,

like I hadn't been carrying this weight,

like the debt wasn't a small stone

I'd been holding

every time I thought of her.

I'm looking at the painting,

at the colors she chose,

at the specific shade of blue

that I made possible

by forgetting.

I don't know how to tell her

that I can see myself in it,

that the debt is visible

in every brushstroke,

that I'll never be able to look at it

without feeling the weight

of what I didn't do.