Without Hope

Giant robots on T.V. as a distraction
just to lock the doors while every parent
goes and tries to kill their morning hangover.
Of the multiple routes they could take
they choose the ones that get them even drunker,
and have fist fights in the streets throughout
the subdivision.
The desperate trying to get to work
swerve around them all with their
red scarves partially damp with vomit
and melted snow. They cannot feel
the cold, and thus they sleep wherever
they slip between places to be.
They cut holes in empty thirty packs
and wear them on their faces,
and as the fights go on the robots
become a reality.
Drive through lines become jagged
and stretch out into the street,
and make a passing thought
of garbage food the center
of the town’s entire roadway.
One of these consumers
takes a turn a little wide
and cannot find the brake
to stop themselves from
crashing. Wrapped around
a power line the whole town
is now beholden to the dark.
The television just an empty husk,
ignored for simple permanence
out the window and beyond
the far horizon.