They spend a lot of time ticking boxes

Selecting options to be somewhere else

Someone of wealth claiming the flame

At all costs of appearances keeping

Up with the image of foes and trending

In the feeds taking cues from below

Far down the queue who post meager

Reviews for shoppers and hoppers galore

Planting their flag in a virtual store fronting

Monthly nuts too vast to swallow hardly

Falling in line to earn followers aplenty

Scores in bunches of twenty or more every

Moment forever demanding loyalty cards

Flying banners in yards with commanding

Attention drawn back to themselves while

Selfish incarnations across multiple stations

Blare out the next verse but what’s even oddly

Worse is the bodily shaming the bold disclaimers

Cleverly proclaiming it’s never our fault despite

Mountains of exalting discourse from the vault

Venerating yet one more mean street parade

Endorsed by celibate names tailor made reading

Scripts from their lips loosely sinking relationships

Forged over years of glare as if they care to call

When you fall into despair about not being

Anyone at all in there anymore except for

The soul you rejected with that longing

To be someone on fire for a moment

NOTE: From early 2023 in a style that sometimes spills out, going back to tone of some of the pieces I wrote in the mid-90s with a streaming-looping cadence; more about the edges than the imagery but closer to my authentic mental flow.