july 2024

Movie ticket was only $8.50. 

I guess maybe it’s a weekday price? Or matinee? I’m the only one here. This place is old school. Places like this don’t stay alive in the city. A lot of places don’t, but, ghost towns out here let the AMC live. Or at least things don’t get torn down as much, you know? Nobody needs to make room, there’s plenty of room.  

They just made homelessness illegal. Supreme Court or somebody? I don't know. Information’s there but my memory’s got it playing a Tetris game in my head and it’s all falling into my heart. 

They can round people up. Put them in the prison factory.

The movie screen is blurry. There’s an ad playing showing beaches in the Caribbean.

What is an everyday American?

All my answers are propaganda. 

I look for truth. Dive so deep that I only end up in the dark, and I forget I need to breathe too.

There's the ones who put on the good show trapped in their shiny prison. They don’t know and we all watch, popcorn in our mouths. Both sides forced to sign the terms of agreement without reading. 

I’m not telling you to watch the news. 

But do you know your neighbor’s name? 

When’s the last time you went on a walk?

Not to get coffee. Not even to walk your dog. 

When's the last time you left with no destination?

You don’t own your own time do you. 

I want family. Do I miss him or the idea of him? Do I miss him or soft intimacy? Do I miss him or do I miss knowing I am whatever I am and someone still wants to be with me. 

Do you remember when that person went and shot up a movie theater? I think it was Batman. 

I was a kid then. I remember the news channels. 

A night club shooting in Florida. 

A kindergarten.

A school. Another school. 

Then there were too many to keep track

And then I stopped knowing. Maybe they stopped saying 

Now I’m hearing the bombs of genocide across the world, I’ve grown up. 

I’ve never lived in the century I'm in. Or maybe it’s the wrong country. I belong to no country. I belong to the earth. 

I need to cry. I think this movie will make me cry. Is it wrong to use it as a tool? 

Our attention has become something others pay for. Mr. Business’s hot new currency.

We gotta pretend our wallets are full of it, so

Take your adderall kids and eat your gummy worms. 

Do I miss you or do I just want you

Nobody knows I’m hours away from home right now 

I think the trailers are depressing me more than the movie will.