its all in the packaging…

The front door creaks

its wooden frame

against the weight

of compulsions that spill past the threshold.

Goat trails cut from cartons of mental attachments

masking shopping bags full

of under priced sale items

impossible to be ignored.

He explained the meticulous detail

that went into organizing the collected artifacts.

She said that sometimes

it was easier to just walk over things

then to find where they belonged.

Larger piles consume smaller piles

and even larger piles flood over

iconographic logos

meant

to represent

the best for us all.

She picks through each attachment 

from dust-strangled figurines to past dated processed foods,

the smell of organic acids fermenting the air.

He tells us how everything has a purpose,

even if he hasn’t found what the purpose may be,

its best to be prepared for anything

this self-destructing world could bring.

Meticulously manicured lawns

hide the abundance of cheaply made goods

sold under brightly lit signs

and well placed advertisements

promising enlightenment in a sale.

Sexual gratification in automated transactions.

He explained how many times

he had gone hungry

to buy the object of affectionate necessity.

The given greater comfort.

He felt power,

he felt good,

it felt right

in buying what he wanted,

when he wanted it.

An unforgiving compulsion feeds a ravenous addiction

A Promised Land mentality has spawned

a population beholden

to a bored apathy over the ignorance of need over want.

Capitulating the fantasy

of a blessed land of milk and honey,

provided by the righteousness of Commerce.

Manifest destiny evolves into vast quantities

of plundered merchandise at below market prices

for self-defeating conveniences

granting us the one last Freedom

to buy what we want.

Hazmat teams enter toxic homes

built on the refuse

of a propagated desire

to be what you purchase.

The Capitalist model feeds on itself by managing the illness in place of curing the sickness.

He can no longer discern the trash

that builds up within.

She has acclimated to breathing in the decay

from isolated corners where animals have gone to die.

The listlessness over material waste that collects in drifts and mounds.

He’s no longer aware

of the scurrying scritch scratch of cockroaches

maneuvering through the atrophy of compostable material.

The fetid air condensates on your skin.

Health inspectors and state authorities

get calls from neighbors who fear

loosing their own property value.

Rescue workers battle down doors searching through rooms
to find survivorswho are unaware of their own catastrophe.
Victims of something they had no idea could happen.

It all crests on a wave of condemnable history

that ends up in dump trunks

headed towards new mountains

of landfills and contaminated wastelands,

Four thousand pounds

of mentally compounded garbage,

excuses fraught with denial,

where packaging gets loosed

and caught on breezes,

on branches,

under fences

and in rivers.

josephmcabral.com

dead letters for living people