Toxins

I've been imprisoned for 8,205 days.
I was born here and I fear
I shall never leave.

Instead of iron bars,
There is a force field.
I can roam
Within the barbed wire
From sea to shining sea.

Where is the freedom
From an upbringing?
Where is the freedom
From a poisoned culture
When every other culture
Has a poison
Of its own?

The cyanide is materialism
Drizzled on our food
We've grown immune
Or at least we live
With it.
We need it.
It's not cyanide;
It's heroin.

Every American is addicted at birth
And breaking free is too hard.
It's who we are.
We are addicts
To our culture.

Move to Asia.
Your sin will follow you.
Move to Antarctica.
You will die
From withdrawal.

"Your want is a need here."
That iPhone. Need.
Those clothes. Need.
That paycheck. Need.
That car. Need.

Have you lived among
The saintly plebeians?
Do you know what it's like
To do without?
To be the receiver
Of charity
Rather than the taker
Of "needs"?

Moths will eat your thirty scarves.
Moths will devour your sweaters.
Time will crush your devices.
And your habits will drain your paycheck.

How can I live in this world
But not be of it
When I can't help but breathe
The toxins?

If I throw my computer
Across the room
And watch it shatter on the wall,
What will I accomplish?
I will crumble to the floor
In sobs.
And then I will piece
My sin back together
As meticulously as it was built
In the factory.
Because that's what addicts do.

Loose my chains.
Take me home.
Please.
I didn't mean to be
A felon.


I've been adding and adding to a giveaway pile in my room. I decided that my three-week-old iPhone should go with it, so I went to the Verizon store and was told it was too late. I'd signed my name in blood, I guess. Later I learned that not all hope was lost, but I still felt the force of the blow. I sobbed all the way home (but held it together when my mother called me) because I felt trapped in a materialism I didn't want, trapped in my sin of an addiction to a device (that will probably remain in some form no matter how much stuff I get rid of), trapped in the regret of my choice to move on into the smartphone world.

When I finally turned on my radio, this Lecrae song was playing and it was so perfect for the moment but it just exacerbated my frustration.

Something is seriously wrong with me. Who cries because they have to have an iPhone? I don't know if I am being incredibly selfish and ungrateful or if I am being valiant in my pursuit of a more minimalistic lifestyle.

Anyway. That's the story behind the poem.


God bless.