Outside, the streets are paved with good intentions
and bad concrete.
the monuments are just larger headstones now,
waiting for the inscription.
you elected a cartoon and got the laugh track stuck on jeer.
every screen a confession booth
where you shout our sins as virtues.
every opinion a brick in a wall you’re building
around our own front yard.
Soon, the dollar will be just paper again,
good for rolling cigarettes or starting fires.
you’ll trade bottled water and anecdotes of when
the satellites still sang.
they’ll re-run Idiocracy like it was a documentary,
a home movie you’re all too stupid to be ashamed of.
the great experiment’s petri dish
is just a shot glass now,
and the culture growing in it
smells like feet and fireworks.
You voted for the reality show,
got the episode where the set burns down.
now you huddle around the sparking screen,
cursing the script you wrote
between commercial breaks.
The fall isn’t coming.
it’s here.
you’re just waiting
for the laugh track to end.
