The Dangers of Capitalism

How much credit

Do these credit cards give me?

In a world ruled by the labels on our purses

Who are the real rulers? The corporate overlords?

I don’t know what real excitement is;

My feelings are given to me

In the media, on the racks of department stores.

I will go to school,

Spending thousands of dollars,

Wasting my youth in the pages of textbooks,

To provide a service

To the top 1% income bracket;

To those who can afford it.

I will do this

Because it is what we call “success.”

I will wait for the launch of the next iPhone

Spend hundreds of dollars for a camera with more pixels

Enough to feed an entire village of starving children;

But my reputation

Is most important.

My designer leather handbag

Is more important

Than the animals who died to create it.

More important

Than the price tag which could buy a car.

When I dare to be different

And ignore this atrocity,

I will be mocked.

An outcast

Because silver and gold

Are not on my wrist,

But in my soul.

I will allow a label

To define me,

Allow myself to be consumed

For the fire to be extinguished

By the mere swipe

Of a piece of plastic

The size of my palm.

This is happiness,

I will tell myself.

This

Is what you worked for.

What your children will work for.

What your parents worked for before you.

Because these credit cards

Give us more credit

Than our high school education

Ever did.

Because it is the 1%

That can afford luxuries

So who else matters?

Because a booming economy

Is much more valuable

Than a world

In which all are seen as equal.

Because the cure to cancer

Could be locked in the mind

Of an uneducated child,

The next president

Could have died

Of malnourishment,

Because the man who sleeps on the streets

Will never see a roof over his head;

They won’t hire him

In his stained shirt and ripped jeans.

Because the sound of the cash register

Is louder

Than the weeping of the world.