Street lamps flicker like lightning bugs low on juice the light barely makes it out of the thick city smog alive these blinking lanterns stretch for miles in different directions leading to new faces and different places and the taste of home on the tip of my tongue. there is a whole universe beyond this highway trees that poke holes in the clouds And blanket the earth for hundreds of miles they are hidden behind the fog of the neon city lights and marketing billboards with cheeseburgers and casinos and naked women plastered on every street corner everyone is so distracted by the humdrum buzzing of the city They swarm like bees to a hive Slaves to the machine They are corralled into a certain way of thinking so the elite that hide behind the curtain of sustainability and everyone else’s best interest can feed off of the ignorance the rest of us helplessly and unknowingly exude These people are children, they are your parents maybe, your second cousin, your elderly neighbors who are blinded by there patriotism and there old habits that they can’t see reality transpiring right outside there window people do not like to feel anything we don’t consider pleasantry we want to ignore the bad feelings and expect instant gratification for everything we do Forget about the cold outside and heat our houses ignore the news because the consequences of our actions are too much to bare so we blame it on someone else, something else far off in the distance To distract ourselves from the fear that rattles profusely in our ribcage like a cornered snake these people are not educated on how to fight the system they are taught to distract themselves with the new iPhone X because the easiest thing to do is run when you’re in a corner into something that is soft, and warm and smells as sweet as your mother something that absorbs the sharp blow of reality so you don’t consciously have to. However there are a small few that have broken away from this way of thinking we are told our virtues of minimalism and sustainability are unrealistic We are labeled dreamers laughed at because we don’t dream in Hollywood lights or corporate cubicles we are the few that stare longingly into the trees past the city and dream of what’s more to come then this mundane day to day dragging our feet. We are the wind, the momentum to break free from the cold slab maze of brick wall thinking that companies and capitalism has brainwashed us into We must have strength We must have courage Even in the darkest of hours for the darkest of people to live by our virtues and stand up for what we believe in We must have discipline and live by what we say We must lead by example We must never stray from our purpose no matter what our parents tell us, no matter if we are told it is unrealistic or things will never work out for us in the end. They will. We are already being forced against our will into a standardized way of thinking Subjected to worse social punishment by the majority it is social suicide to step out of the cultural conformities of the western civilization. but we must. the western mindset is a man eats world mentality one percent of a pie feeds off of the other 90 percent economic canibalism the one percent have bought there way to the top Sold souls below them to the highest bidder the other ninety percent of the pie we will continue chasing paper like we’re chasing highs to determine our self worth we must break free from this toxic way of thinking we must put an end to buying our selves clothes we don’t need and expensive foreign cars we don’t even know how to drive Or else the cycle will continue We will rack up mile long receipts over things we tell ourselves we need to live comfortably when we don’t and they will win If we keep quiet and sit still like we’ve been told to, and grow up the way it’s been modeled for us by the other cookie cutter members of society that small slice of the pie will win and the rest of us will pay for our tickets to the end of the world.