Summer Rogers
litmus test
Life as real as TV broadcasts pleonasm
Trendy narcissism speaks louder than quiet thrift store scrutiny
For what initially seemed empowering, naïve followers multiplied
And trailed after goods that advertised the millennium
Believing the other side was green
Reality was blown into little pieces
Walking the soul, like the dog
Gentrifying the neighborhood the same
Puffed smoke from their cigarettes between channels
Routing their threaded profile towards achievements
With billboard poise, wife beater tee shows muscle
Sweatshop grief mutely endures
Capped-tooth smiles disguise two-piece vanity in show tune happiness through
Psychic sex phone cords, installing that lost kindergarten confidence in the receiver
Greened pupils watch love ignite orgasms as
Duty merely genuflects
Reggae twists lock into peepholes of ecstasy
Holding open their orifices
As silver-plated rings gleam turning fingers
Into malignant sticks doused in stardust
Painted spirit is peeling at the ends of moral weight
Hidden between sheets of acidity