Public Spaces

Undercover, outside
Going through the motions
Watching from a disinterested distance
An automaton -
Slip into the role.

No one can hear the rabble in my head
- The motivational track on repeat
Step to the beat
Sarcastic lyrics for every occasion
Get me through the day;

The running social commentary
Mocking the processes
The poses, the slow-frenzied gesticulating herd
Mouths gopping like fishes
Blurting senseless babble like
Projectile vomit
Mixing, swirling, covalent bonds
Rippling into the atmosphere
In a full-contact dance with other blurts from other gops
The atoms separating, blending, reconnecting, scrambled
Rising as twisting smoke, and just as toxic
Haze over a crowd like pot clouds over a moshpit
The high-pitched chirrups getting lost in a collective din
Angry buzzing, an unwelcome sea of alarm clocks
Competing with cheap, canned, designer radio pop songs
Blaring from the hot dog stand, the recruitment table
Where sentinels in their American Apparel uniforms, with robotic smiles
Cold and groping
Suck new fish into their plastic world, plastic lifestyle, plastic mind
Filled with plastic pursuits, plastic obsessions.

...I crank up the song in my own head
Duck to block out the plasticity, the din
Retreat into myself, an outsider lost within
The madness.