I stood outside smoking a cigarette
thinking of all the politicians I resent
I got light headed and hit the cement
and found pain possible to prevent.

My dead weight fell on my arm
jamming my paralyzed fingers
doing my innate shoulder harm
the pain in my elbow still lingers.

You said I should stop smoking
I said I should stop steaming
but it's my only way of coping
with the things that I'm dreaming
drawn from these things that I'm gleaming
from the top of a tower that's leaning
I see a tiresome war beneath me
and fall on my arm obliquely.

We must be willing to compromise politically
without compromising our morality
but our morality dictates our politics
and politics indoctrinate morality
even though willingness to compromise is part of our morality
so are concepts like freedom and sovereignty and liberty
and it's up to us to decide what those words mean individually
and it's on those definitions we are unwilling to compromise.

Constantly confounded
monsters have mounted
problems I've counted
groveling grounded.

The constant confusion
from deficit delusions
create definite illusions
of excrement infusion.

The continuous questioning
can be quite deafening
lessening
the best of me.

I use a thought shield
so I cannot feel
like the locked steel
of stopped wheels.

F in the chat
for the death in my hat
I'm left with a lack
of discerning tact.

I'm living a lie
by not living with why
but idiot I
just sits down and cries.

I haplessly hope for a lucky guess
to get me out of this ******* mess
but I haven't seen nothing yet
except my own lonely death.

The job is wrangling
a constant cascade of containers
filled with everything I can imagine
some totes more full than others
on a never ending conveyor belt
all must go to their appropriate cart
softer objects like clothing go on top
while the hardline items go to the bottom.

Unloading these bundles
becomes a tedious tennis match
where the score remains the same
stuck playing a familiar game
every tote must be dealt with
before they start piling up
and lights start shining
as everything shuts down.
I scan the baskets; I scan the carts
never letting items drift apart
crossguard meshing prevents spillage
the contents pressure the straps
I'm always expecting a collapse.

Once a particular cart has been filled
I push it away and carry back a new cart
to be filled with new items of the same nature
I hope people get the things they need
but every day something else breaks
every day something goes missing
those customers will have to wait
on me to do better next time
I hope I can too
I don't want to be taking
the same orders for
the rest of my life.

I like it
I love it
I lyk it
I let you show it
if you don't loll me to sleep
by only responding with lol
from inside a black out crowd
you back it down to a bracket brown
then wait to text "guess who's back in town?"
to try to catch-up without ****
so I can see your vacant eyes and barren scoff
when you tell me lies to tell me off
you think you're sly but you're just a cop
abusing power until I pop
you build a tower to watch me drop
while I'm falling you ask wya, eta, etc.
while I'm just terrified of breaking my femora
talking on Snapchat with a broken camera
after you ask me to send nudes
like that's all that men do
so I bid you adieu to get rid of the rude
member of the brood to which Cronnenberg alludes
you respond with kthxbai
I wonder why I even try.

I wanted to sign up for the game after hearing enough
but there were some questions you had to ask first:
Am I human or horde?
Do I want to fight the environment or other players?
I said I'd rather go against the other players
before all the peacebloom and nightshade is farmed
and everyone has to download the cataclysm expansion
your jubilant response to the macabre alerted cautious receptors
asking me to join your alliance to fight the horde
because if I'm not on your side I'm undead or a troll
some bloated tauren or greedy goblin
even though there are plenty of healers on that side
you're more concerned with damage per second
because you're consumed by World of Warcraft
so I said I was more interested in Plants vs. Zombies
which I mistook for Call of Duty
you said you don't play mobile games
and the best games end in yelling at your computer
because you don't need to know where a pixel comes from
in order to **** the bad guys.

I work on a river bank in the rainforest of an Amazon warehouse
where the torrential downpour of consumerism never subsides
filling the conveyor belt tributaries flowing through the industrial jungle
so commodity pisces can swim to my village at the basin—pack line 2
where the village folk run a benevolent catch and release program
providing bags and boxes for physical deflection and germ prevention
parts, presents, and propaganda all prudently properly packaged
finally released to follow the river to their eighteen wheel hearse
transporting them to a behemoth with an insatiable appetite
it gets a primitive thrill out of being a picky eater
throwing away anything it doesn't want
letting the vultures circle the trash pile
knowing its waste will attract new feeders
salmon swimming upstream thinking they'll become leviathans.