POEMS, SONGS AND POETIC GIFS

Title (sold off) — Awaiting Restock))
Author: D’Bara Arruda

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Dearest Me:
This poem is meant to be written on brown wrapping paper
and read with courage as you pleasure yourself
under the rain of compliments for your latest acquisition.

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I want
To want
Wanting
— Stop!
Stop for what and why?
— And to give?
Do you know how?

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This selfishness of ours devours everything
As if tomorrow didn’t exist
Barely a second passes
And the abyss of our desires
whines like a needy child
of all we already have.
Spoiled by what we don’t need,
we fight on Black Friday
without noticing we stepped on someone.
— But hey!
It’s just for the thrill of buying, you know?

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It’s trending...
— Yeah, it’s also in the blood, in human exploitation,
in slave labor, in children without childhood
and without education.
Lobotomized brains under construction.
— You call that progress?
But the scream echoes regression.
Doesn’t it?

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Today’s consumer
is tomorrow’s product
in this machine that transcends time,
manipulates lives
and shatters feelings,
molding us:
Machines
Manufactured
Canned
Processed
— Comfortable, right?

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And the advertising?
Who profits from your hunger?
— It’s the eye drop that blinds you
with pastel-colored discount ads.
They own your deepest cravings.
Them? Altruists, you say...
But the devil hides in the fine print.
They shackle your tongue
in lab-made flavors.
— First dose is free,
but after the hangover
you realize the size of the bill
(or should I say, screw).

​

How far to keep
this sustaining of the farce of ‘to be or not to be’,
as if it were still a choice
and not a recycled slogan
from the storefront of the ego.

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Cut the strings
that sustain and guide your steps.
— You lost, puppet.
You already do what they want.
Eat what they serve you.
Dress with lack of identity,
like a bovine in the herd.
Even your scent is no longer yours.
It was sold online
to better fulfill
your eloquent cravings.

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Now try!
Here’s the question:
You're completely controlled.

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Try to hear the symphony of the ridiculous.
— But beware: even the harmony
of this song called life
is filled with addictive arrangements and notes.
Dependency kills the soul.
And when you lift your head
from this sea of sludge,
trying to breathe reason,
you realize:

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You never owned your ego...

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… “You wished.
But then you find out
even emptiness has a price
and there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
— Really!
(A void that capitalism
gratefully split into three easy payments.)

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I, Homo economicus,
the evolution of superficial happiness.

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“And if you cried reading this,
your emotional biometrics
have already been sold
to the next campaign
of discounted antidepressants.”

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And in the end?
On your tombstone,
instead of kind words,
a subtle barcode:
(0000000000)
Here lies a consumer.