Boy, look up at me.
Stand and leave your toys.
It is time for a lesson.
It is time to learn the cost of things.

You have been living
off of my teat for far too long
wearing the short pants
that I have paid for.
Today is the day
you discover what it is all worth.
Today you will prepare
to earn your keep.

Look: that man washing the window.
He gets paid a dollar for his effort.
That tight skirted young woman?
She may earn twenty
possibly one hundred dollars.
I’ll verify later.
A hot dog is two dollars
and Doctor Charles Mayo said
close to a hundred years ago
that the elements of a human body
can be bought for eighty four cents.

A modern article puts that amount
at four fifty.
Inflation.

If you sell your semen and blood
you may make a bit more
on the regular.
Consider yourself a cow to be milked
and you may be able to pay for yourself
much sooner, boy
as that is a thing
you will have to work on
sometime soon.

I hope you have learned
a bit today, son,
because I do not know
if I will have time
for another lesson
before you must begin repaying the debt
that you owe me
for your life.