I drive down the dead avenues of
perfect lawns and early bedtimes
and turned the surf music
down low

I can’t help but to think about the
streets lined with pre-fabricated
houses like mausoleums of the
living dead

inside them resides
the Lacoste polos and
flowered sundresses with
immaculate credit scores,
mortgage payments and
college degree required jobs

they send their kids off to private
school or lacrosse practice
or piano recitals

and their relatives (who live
on streets just like theirs)
come over for celebrations
out on their patio sets

it’s all the same: a barbecue,
birthday parties, graduation
parties, block parties, picnics,
bar mitzvah’s, quinceañeras

a luxury motor vehicle in every garage
an inground pool in every backyard
complete with a row of beach chairs
the lawn is cut diagonally both ways
closets lined with dry-cleaned suits
their brooding emotions enfolded
with xanax and ******

not a suicide, ******, robbery in sight
the bums don’t stagger their sidewalks
the maniacs don’t trundle their streets
there’s not even a dog **** to pick up

they elect officials into office, have affairs
with each other’s wives out of boredom,
play frisbee golf, do yoga, drink light beer
and overpriced coffee,
they smoke expensive cigars
and tuck their shirts into their cargo shorts

they’ve given up, sold out
the body bag awaits
them all with
time as the only
contributing factor
but when the corpses
are disemboweled
death will be disappointed
because they’ll leave
nothing behind
no soul
no juice
no spine
to collect

living an ordinary life
costs an extraordinary
price.

one can only endure so much
as I drove towards the end
of the cul-de-sac and turned
around fast and reached
the stop sign.

I put my blinker on

broke left

and got the hell
away from that
zombie graveyard

some folks call

“suburban living.”