Grocery Shopping Poem by Raj Dronamraju

I'm getting my grocery list together for a week's shopping
- carrots, apples, a pack of saltine crackers, coffee
I'm looking around the living room for proof I exist
This will have to do

A few miles from here, famished faces slap their gross obese social media profiles and parade their bloated buttocks
And set up altars to their gods of insincerity showing that Machiavellianism is indigenous
Spare me the embarrassment except for that you feel in dreams when you are walking around naked and then look around and realize you are naked

I'm pulling a box of detergent off the shelf and I'm checking the price
And the task consumes me as much as a conversation or love or someone mentioning me in writing

Behind the grocery store, someone's throwing their old, imperfect self in the trash
When commerce procured for them a new self, they were quick to reward loyalty this way
The only thing I throw away is the empty packaging of items that were real enough to have given all of themselves