Does That Make Me Crazy?

If I had the money I owed
I would believe in God.
What other force could be at work
When all of my work is not enough
To close the gaps,
To lift the lead and straw?
When all of my intense creation,
My labors of will and art and love
Are worth next to nothing
From a crowd’s wallets?
I have come to accept my debts
As essential to life,
Like ticking clocks and skin maladies
And scars from a thoughtless pet.
Nobody told the third-grade child
That he would grow up
To earn the hatred, the bitterness,
The spite, the deficits, the hunted
Looks, the haunted hurts,
The pains big and small.
Nor that he would be unable to pay
Despite losing sleep,
Selling memory, and gambling
With futures beyond his own.
If the money suddenly came
To my hand, why wouldn’t I
Scream at the sky again?
If everyone in all the world
Loved me kind and true,
Forgave my faults, allowed
My heart, wanted me
Here to stay, then surely—
Surely—somebody up there laughed.