nothing compares

i float across the parking lot under the concrete sky. i'm detached, i'm gonna buy shoes. silently i sing along with prince, "i went to the doctor and guess what he told me, guess what he told me? he said, 'boy you better try to have fun no matter what you do,' but he's a fool." yeah, they've all been fools. today i strut through the mall with a gold chain around my neck that reads "death poems," cuz when i'm feeling extra immaterial i drape myself in extra materials, i suck up shit like the, like the what, like the $49.94 bissell powerforce, on sale, hmm good deal. i see and am seen by the bissell, and the girl at the iphone case kiosk, and the looming crowds. i look down on it all, and my place within it. i am sullied but mostly sully (what, what do i sully, the earth, by this purchase of slave-made plastic, i hate it).

eventually i find the shoes, i make them my shoes, it is done.

i could have bought them on amazon, i could have bought the whole mall there, but the car ride, the parking lot/sky slab combo, the unchanged food court of my childhood, the nylon sheen of the sneakers, the cashier's searching eyes - they dissolve the haze. they are the wheels for the journey of the purchase, and the comic foil to the sadness of the song. "all the flowers that you planted, mama, in the backyard all died when you went away."