you call yourself a person of society
like that means something to anyone.
a designer deity, ready-made for
war ships
that set out to conquer the inner sanctum of your heart.

they say
your bedroom behaviour
amounts to nothing more
than a lick and a promise
so promise me this:
one day you will see
you are a sad symbol in overpriced clothes
seeking nirvana in the sound of
cash registers revealing
thinly-worn bills to light.

you are the
triple-decker chocolate cake
of a world watching its weight
and making a statement by
pacing dark halls.
pedantically romantic
and increasingly more frantic,
in cities where the only mantic words
are scribbled on the walls

where empty men with alcohol
singing in their veins
swap paper for loose women
and for even looser change
a human train, no chance of stopping
city sunk beneath the waves
slipped beneath the frothy topping
of a thousand just desserts.

poets unearthing
broken zeitgeist of a searching
humanity for humanity
and insanity sounds the same

as buying off the rack.
when those designer dresses
are more of a societal experiment
than a fashionista's best guesses:
how ugly can we make it
until nobody will buy it?
until they won't try it on there in the store?
underestimating the will to belong

because we
fill our days with pencil taps
slideshow counts and daydreams
of worlds so unattainable
and we are unexplainable.
our lives are unsustainable
with so many wordless screams.

our hearts are held up, contraband
and spill out on the floor
alone, while vibrant worlds are nearly
knocking down our door.

we are:
in the darkened lair of liars
and waiting for the sun.
counting up the deeds we've done,
ignoring the desires.
candlelight on tablecloths and
one.
step.
away.
from setting the world on fire.

And you.
you in a dress that fits like a
glove fits hands made for lighting matches.
and the catches and releases
of price tags sound like love.

two earrings that don't quite fit
in the hole you're trying to make them fill.
that fifty-dollar bill
has been in your hand before.

the praxis of shopping
has rendered you into a cliché worthy
of an afternoon soap opera.
and you're singing that the serendipitous find
of that new black dinner dress
has more to do with God than your precipitous
impulse to buy the first thing that
looks like love.
that looks like a statement.
that looks like a cause.
you flip them like the cheap chairs
you keep in your living room, smugly,
so the boys don't get comfortable
waiting.
for you to realize that the clothes
make.
you.
ugly.