Mysterious packages...

discarded

in litter bins

unsigned for

and

undelivered

Life is the prattle of an old lady.

She squawks either too loudly
or makes you crane to hear.

as she sits rocking,
her senile nonsense numbs your intelligence
until you sit bleary-
gaping at the air
like the fattest fish in the aquarium.

your every comment drowns
in the mush
of her tapioca voice.

you sit uncomfortably in her fishbowl world of
cottage cheese,
faded floral print- lace doilies
and contemplate your deft superiority
as her denture clicks gnaw on your sanity.

as soon as you think
a vague plotline surfaces in her mumbling
a new great aunt’s third cousin’s baby
weaves its way into the conversation,
and you are hopelessly thrown
like a reused dryer sheet
back into the colored load.

occasionally you attempt to establish a connection
between you and the venerable wrinkled smile
but she mishears and begins another
disconnected strain
featuring Bobby, the lad turned soldier.

but
just
as soon as you gain confidence
that you know how to handle this doddery senior-
she slams you with a small token
of sage advice
that shatters your naïve sphere
with its mind-wrenching validity.

I pledge allegiance to a country that's done nothing for me.
I pledge allegiance to this ticking corporate time bomb, counting down the number of people left outside of its marketing cage.

Tick tock
Tick tock
Tick tock

Clock counting down the number of days left until a new order passes, tying us tighter to the system we all say we want to avoid, the system hiding in the shadows of everything we do.

I pledge allegiance to "by the people for the people" turned "by the people for the money" because that's the fuel of the freedom we value so highly as to put a price on it, as if that's a measure of its worth.

I pledge allegiance to impossible standards laid out in HD clarity on screens too far from reality to reach, sending the message that worth is now measured by a number on a scale instead of what's in your heart.

I will no longer pledge allegiance this false sense of truth hiding behind a mask of lies,

Instead I'll pledge allegiance to the memory of one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.