THE TRAP

As long as you’re made of gasoline
& Big Macs & thick plastic bags
filled with gourmet moth food,
designer rags from garish boutiques,
you’ll fall easily into our trap.

Our oppression is deep fried. It smells
like cheap cologne. It’s an eight-part
mini-series that you can binge
in a single day, & while you doze

on your leather sofa, we’ll pin you down
like paper dolls in corkboard prisons
under our watchtowers & unwavering
gaze. If you move, if you think,

if you want, if you
rebel it’s because that’s what we
desire, what we’ve designed

because as long as you’re stuck
in rush hour traffic chasing after billboards:
the perfect smile, blood diamonds,
sweat shops kicks, fifteen percent off
your car insurance plan, the love

of your God, you’ll be too busy to see
we need you more than you need us.
As long as you’re hyperventilating the air
we’ve poisoned, your blood turned to sludge
from the fats & meats & sugar we feed you,

until you stop wanting to buy watches
with credit cards more than you want to be
free, & until you overcome the paralysis
from the fear peddlers you’ve plastered
on your screens, you’ll never know

how illusory it all is, that you could
shrug, let go, & in simplicity live
as the ether between the stars, too real
for us to dig our claws in to.

Tom Rions-Maehren lives in Guayaquil, Ecuador with his wife and puppy where he works as a writing tutor. He has served as a volunteer in countries like Ecuador, India, New Zealand, and Mozambique. He loves drawing from his experiences and the beautiful landscapes he’s seen on his travels as well ideas from his studies in philosophy at the University of Minnesota as sources of inspiration for his writing. When he isn't writing, he's cooking vegan food or training for a marathon.