Free Verse · Kindness
Happy Debts
Some debts are happy ones.
What you did —
the showing up, the staying late,
the asking twice —
I won't be paying it back.
I'll be paying it forward,
which is, I think,
how kindness planned it all along.
Original poem © QuillOak — personal sharing is permitted.
“Happy Debts” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/happy-debts
Quick facts
- Poem
- Happy Debts
- Poet
- The QuillOak Editors
- Length
- 8 lines
- Form
- Free Verse
- Themes
- Kindness, Friendship, Short
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Original QuillOak text. Personal sharing is permitted; other reuse requires permission.
- Author record
- The QuillOak Editorstoday
- Source record
- QuillOak originalHappy Debts, authored for QuillOak by The Quillery
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 c4c87578fb08fef5…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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