White, Dave. Selling Yourself Short. July 1, 2024, Dave White Illustrations.
Lately, I feel worthless.
I needed to find some value in me,
So I sold what I had
For little a fee.
My eyes for a penny
I sold to some fools,
They’re blind and useless,
Mistook for jewels.
My lips for a nickel
To the sweetest sin,
So they’ll know the love
That has never been.
My ears for a dime
I sold to a lover.
To hear sweet nothings,
And silence uncover.
My hands for a quarter
I sold to a ghost,
So that she might feel
What I’ve wanted the most.
Finally my bones for a dollar
I sold to the earth,
But as for my soul-
There was found no worth.
Jimenez, Kiana. “Self-Worth.” Poetic Bipolar Mind: Unraveling Life’s Threads Through Art and Words, 2024, p. 7.
David White’s Sell Yourself (July 1, 2024) and Kiana Jimenez’s poem Self-Worth are two sides of the same haunting reflection on value, commodification, and the cost of existence. Together, they dissect the ways in which the human self—body, spirit, and identity—is broken apart and appraised by a world eager to consume.
The illustration presents a fragmented human form: eyes, lips, ear, hand, and bone scattered across the page. Interspersed with coins and bills, these parts are not whole, but reduced to objects of trade. The skeletal bone in the center grounds the composition with a chilling reminder of mortality, fragility, and how identity can be stripped down to its barest frame. The handwritten phrase “Yourself Short” completes the piece, both a warning and a lament of undervaluing one’s worth.
The poem Self-Worth gives these fragments a voice. In it, the speaker sells off parts of themselves—eyes for a penny, lips for a nickel, ears for a dime, hands for a quarter, bones for a dollar—each transaction a hollow attempt to find meaning in being. Yet at the end, when even the body is sold, the soul is found to hold no worth in the eyes of others.
“Finally my bones for a dollar I sold to the earth,
But as for my soul—There was found no worth.”
Together, artwork and poem create a piercing commentary on how society reduces people to what they can offer, how easily we internalize that transaction, and how devastating the cost of such bargains can be. Sell Yourself becomes the visual counterpart to the poem’s verses, an anatomy of loss and commodification, while Self-Worth transforms the visual fragmentation into lived pain and voice.
This pairing challenges us to ask: What is our true worth? And how often do we, knowingly or unknowingly, sell ourselves short?
Leave a Reply