Inner Universe ● 1 min read
Fluorescent in a Fabricated World
It’s a status-obessed world. And I’m here, sitting at an Island’s restaurant, watching people young and old, jockey with one another as they shop inside this mall.
On a half-back chair,
at a mall bar,
I sit, refreshing my body
with what’s on tap.
I wait.
Watching TVs broadcast
college football
this weekend evening,
for the women in my life.
An Indian gentleman sits
beside me,
orders a lemonade,
cheeseburger and fries,
the fried aroma
alarms my stomach’s
sleeping hunger.
Back straight, chest out,
time slips away.
My head oscillates
at the surrounding crowd.
Men, strutting
like roosters in a hen house.
Women, reconstructed
in society’s shifting
standard of beauty.
Teenagers, aimless,
chatting, embedded,
awkwardly searching
for acceptance
in this fabricated world.
I, a fluorescent bulb
in this dense room.
Status, labels,
the appearance
of wealth,
a distant star
in my world,
The very breath
to this mall’s patrons.
Dew from the glass
snaps me back
to a wait
that continues.
