Drooling
When the span of our attention
comes to an end, don’t you worry.
There will still be plenty of fruit-flavored Marshmallow Peeps
and peanut butter jelly bubble gum to go around.
Plenty of self-taught prodigies ready to submit their auditions to YouTube.
And, although every single hostage mouse will suffer an unspeakable death, the cheese-flavored injections will become the profitable plague it was supposed to be.
Flirting with business. Blackmailing God.
Every distraction serves its purpose to frighten;
its purpose to encourage addictive wellbeing.
Our paper-white teeth and polyethylene gums
will be reflected in our Smarter-Than-Us tablets.
Gucchi heaven will deliver our children in bedazzled handbags.
The mall escalator will be out of order, just like the left lane ahead.
Don’t they know no one has time for detours?
Whatever happened to the old-fashioned Find-Out-For-Yourself spoonful of experience?
What the hell happened to authenticity?
Can we take a picture without using our phones?
If not, we might as well shut our eyes.
Could we spend some time with an emotion before declaring it to the public with a hashtag?
Take a vacation from text messages filled with acronyms and the letter “U.”
While stumbling through alcoholic mazes,
actors dressed as cardboard landscape steal the objects which make us identifiable.
Sit us in highchairs.
Keep an eye on us.
Keep us well-fed.
Give us a sense of empathetic presence.
Everyone knows we’re already there;
already paralyzed and entertained by still images,
unable to close our mouths; offering refuge
to every homeless fly.
The Anxiety Diet
The Diet Coke softens coffee’s bitter cringe.
The caffeine with carbonation promises
to numb overwhelming humanity.
A chocolate chip cookie pairs well with a cigarette.
Two dozen sugar spheres and one pack of warm nicotine
to stimulate the brain more than the morning before.
The Song That Wakes Me
Sometimes we hear no songbird,
and our skin feels laced too tight.
Some of us breathe better asleep
than awake,
while our pillows are filling
with a burden
of a whispering mind…
We say, “The night is young”
calling down the tattered curtain,
separating us from tomorrow.
But we still hear the spilling of sand,
from the turning disc, whisking in the alarm clock…
and though we bury our ears further into bed,
our eardrums (fine stones in eggshells) were made to last.
Open the cupboard,
cups hide their handles
from the bareness of bright.
That light is a flare
Night says, “Hope, don’t you dare…”
Hope, be a watercolor draped on the door…
Hope, be piano keys or lovely finger bones,
portrayed upon the ceiling…
Hope, be the song that wakes me.
When the span of our attention
comes to an end, don’t you worry.
There will still be plenty of fruit-flavored Marshmallow Peeps
and peanut butter jelly bubble gum to go around.
Plenty of self-taught prodigies ready to submit their auditions to YouTube.
And, although every single hostage mouse will suffer an unspeakable death, the cheese-flavored injections will become the profitable plague it was supposed to be.
Flirting with business. Blackmailing God.
Every distraction serves its purpose to frighten;
its purpose to encourage addictive wellbeing.
Our paper-white teeth and polyethylene gums
will be reflected in our Smarter-Than-Us tablets.
Gucchi heaven will deliver our children in bedazzled handbags.
The mall escalator will be out of order, just like the left lane ahead.
Don’t they know no one has time for detours?
Whatever happened to the old-fashioned Find-Out-For-Yourself spoonful of experience?
What the hell happened to authenticity?
Can we take a picture without using our phones?
If not, we might as well shut our eyes.
Could we spend some time with an emotion before declaring it to the public with a hashtag?
Take a vacation from text messages filled with acronyms and the letter “U.”
While stumbling through alcoholic mazes,
actors dressed as cardboard landscape steal the objects which make us identifiable.
Sit us in highchairs.
Keep an eye on us.
Keep us well-fed.
Give us a sense of empathetic presence.
Everyone knows we’re already there;
already paralyzed and entertained by still images,
unable to close our mouths; offering refuge
to every homeless fly.
The Anxiety Diet
The Diet Coke softens coffee’s bitter cringe.
The caffeine with carbonation promises
to numb overwhelming humanity.
A chocolate chip cookie pairs well with a cigarette.
Two dozen sugar spheres and one pack of warm nicotine
to stimulate the brain more than the morning before.
The Song That Wakes Me
Sometimes we hear no songbird,
and our skin feels laced too tight.
Some of us breathe better asleep
than awake,
while our pillows are filling
with a burden
of a whispering mind…
We say, “The night is young”
calling down the tattered curtain,
separating us from tomorrow.
But we still hear the spilling of sand,
from the turning disc, whisking in the alarm clock…
and though we bury our ears further into bed,
our eardrums (fine stones in eggshells) were made to last.
Open the cupboard,
cups hide their handles
from the bareness of bright.
That light is a flare
Night says, “Hope, don’t you dare…”
Hope, be a watercolor draped on the door…
Hope, be piano keys or lovely finger bones,
portrayed upon the ceiling…
Hope, be the song that wakes me.
