What I Could Have Done with My Student Loans

I.  I could have bought a horse
With my student loans
And rode it into a sunset
Or a dawn
Or into a town
With outlaws
And sheriffs
And people who need saving
I could have been a savior
And now I need saving
And a savings account
And to save what's left of my life
Before it gets eaten up
By second guessing
And second chances
And...and...

II.  I could have invested
But I don't know what I would have invested in
A business?  A stock?
A stock business?
Is that a thing?
What goes up
What goes down
How do people make sense of this?
I took those loans
And I asked someone to give me creativity
And instead they told me
I already had creativity
But they took my money anyway
After they tried to teach me how to harness something
I needed them to help me create

III.  I could have traveled
I could have sat at bars
With interesting people
With interesting problems
Interesting drinking problems
And ex-wives
And five o'clock shadows
That show up at noon
I could have met those people
And bought them drinks they didn't need
While they gave me the world on a barstool
Safely seated, swiveling back and forth
Assuring me that all people are interesting
If you've never met them before
And you're never going to have to talk to them again

IV.  I could have spent my student loans
On art projects that I'd never finish
And some that I would finish
But that I'd never show anyone
And parties for friends
And fundraisers for charity
And dining room tables
For dining rooms
In houses
That I'd own
In neighborhoods that I'd live in
With other wealthy people
Shirking financial responsibility
By spending their student loans
On things other than education

We'd wave at each other in the morning
Sipping our coffee
And mowing our lawn
Saying--

'I could have been a Philosophy major!'

And--

'I could have studied Architecture!'

Then we'd mow our lawns
And get our mail
And stand in our garages
Looking at paintings
That we'd never finish

V.  I could have bought gifts for people
That I loved
And people that I didn't love
My enemies
I could have bought gifts for my enemies
To make them feel even worse
For hating me
And the gifts would have been extravagant
And I would have felt so self-righteous
And the tears of my enemies
Would fill enough oceans
To sail boats on
And I would have sailed those oceans
I would have sailed them on a boat
Bought with my student loan money

VI.  I could have met the love of my life
By filling my pockets with money
And wandering the streets
Waiting for my greedy soulmate
To smell the currency
And come chasing after me

VII.  I could have gotten surgery
On all the things
I don't like about myself
And then made new things to dislike
Just to get them fixed too
Going around and around
Until one day nothing about me
Would be old or new
And I wouldn't know
Where to begin

VIII.  I could have filled up a vault
With quaters
Like Scrooge McDuck
And swam in it
The way he used to
Feeling richer
Even though I wouldn't really be that rich
Those student loans weren't for that much
But they were for a lot
Enough
Enough to make me realize
I should never have accepted them
Even though I took them anyway
Enough to make me go--

Whoa, this can't be right

And I was right
It wasn't right
I was right about it being wrong
But I went right ahead anyway

What's wrong with me?

IX.  I could have bet it all in Vegas
Took a risk
Been reckless
Let it all ride

Isn't that what I did anyway?
Didn't I put it all on one thing
And say--

Let's see what happens?

Didn't I roll the dice?
Didn't I sip on a scotch and soda
And laugh at fortune
And buy into the whole romantic notion of it all?
The tradition?
The ruckus?
The roulette?

I should have just gone all in
I should have gone big
I should have stayed home

X.  I could have looked at that first check
And clicked my tongue
Against my teeth
And thought--

Maybe not

But I could have done a lot of things

I could have been a lot of things

I could have been a fortune teller
Or a detective
And figured it all out
Before it got the best of me

But that's not how it works

You spend the check
You roll the dice
You buy what you're supposed to buy
And some stuff you're not supposed to buy
And you pay for it all later on

And you hope they give you something
To save yourself with
When you realize you need saving

You hope they give you something
For what you spent

For everything you gave them
For all the time and faith
And trust you gave them

That you could have given
To something
To anything
Else