Insignificant dust
Swept under a cosmic carpet.
From pharaohs
To the night stockers at Wal-Mart,
Beg the questions asked countless times before.
I tell myself it doesn't matter
Because I'm on the up and up.
I won't be in this place forever
So what's the harm in taking it easy?
Some alternative country song plays on the air;
Singing about nostalgia and the west.
They don't have those things in China.
And here I thought I'd get to start over
In an afterlife with my family.
When I see their lifeless eyes,
I can tell no one thinks beyond themselves.

My knees always
get the brunt of it all.
Between bed corners,
light poles,
and the even sometimes
the gum-y underside of tables,
there’s a passport
of popped blood vessels
sitting on my skin.

And while the pre-chewed
peppermint smell and
sticky residue fade,
the bruises linger
like a supermarket peach.

Soft with warm skin,
darkened from
tumbles of truck beds
and clumsy stockers alike.

Still sweet, but
visibly damaged
from hands too unkind
to put me back on the shelf.

Maybe I’ll get chosen anyway.
Or maybe I’ll rot
in this ******* Georgia heat.
But I guess
I have to be patient.
After all,
the season
is just getting started.