Conspicuous Consumption

Buyer beware

Oh, you're in for a scare

When I tell you your hair

Does not need that much care

That your phone

Doesn't need to cost

More than your home

That those things that you own

And you don't even use

Are as faulty and paltry

As what's on the news

That your new pair of shoes

Is the bare feet of poverty,

Your right to choose

Is some Lot in Life's Lottery

Stocking your shelves

With the Keebler Elve's spells

And stuffing your stockings each year,

Jingle bells

Someone else's expense

Isn't worth your two cents

You dispense it like dreams

Of the white picket fence

While the industry picks at your pockets

Unheeded

Insurances claim extra coverage is needed

To breathe and to read

The fine print on the label

Approved FDA chemical

Farm to table

Just turn a blind eye

To the advertise lies

Inundating your eyes

With disguised dollar signs

Like some supersize fries

Fill you up for five minutes

Then leave you as empty

As when you first bit it

The infinite Amazon

Shopping mall pantheon

Built to the corporate gods

Of Emoticon

Keeping you spending, and clicking,

And liking,

And posting,

And boasting,

But mostly just psyching

You out of reality

Plastic-wrapped packaging

Boxed in a fallacy

Now shipping free

Who they want you to be

Just a product to brand

For the others to see

You consuming it all so

Conspicuously