wrote this for black friday last year and a friend reminded me about it today so we can consider it a cyber monday deal at the manic word depot

the walls are closing in on me this morning

made the sacred pilgrimage to the Mart of Wal, the quest to find bread and milk a success

over dressed in shorts and shirt, pajamas the flavor of the day

the remnants of a great battle marked the entire marketplace, I saw the decapitated head of a man in the frozen section, eyes imploring for one more deal

discarded carts and lost children, like the walking corpses of a better time, great values devalued by the loss of decency and basic understanding

4K dismay marked the faces of those that lived, the tragic look of those who have seen too much, been through the fires of Hell only to have to return and sift through the ash and husks, teary eyes restocking the aisles, trapped in this purgatory, memories of another time

a time before

I kept my eyes down, avoided contact by the zombified visage, fixated on my goal

of tinsel and toppers, misaligned plastic trees and ornaments of disorganised chaos

giving credit where payment is due, receipts and insufficient fun, the yoke of the masters tightening, consumerism and capitalism the only true saviors

quixotic knights and couponic plague, the windmills are dragons and the bargains too much to just stroll right past, rolled back and deductive, seductive and unnecessary

buy me, eat me, drink me, down faster and farther through this burrow, rationality gone, fill the buggy, grab another, deals like this never last

I wear my destitution like armor, shopping until I drop, another victim of religious observations and mental depravations, the only need for more

went for bread and milk, got a new television for the restroom, a toaster for the bath, a plastic tree and baubles of every shape and color

I had no need for any of it but had to have it all, traded one slightly battered gall bladder for a wreath that reads peace on earth

the true meaning of the season