The Owners Poem by Raj Dronamraju

Ownership makes you old
The worrywart society you knowingly join
The trinkets of an empty life draped around yourself like Marley's chains
Kneel before this perishable fetish
And accumulate, accumulate, accumulate

Accumulate reason then throw it away on a girl
Who squats like dry, hardened oatmeal in your living room
For 20 or 30 years bearing offspring who from their first words on ask to purchase stuff

Each family member with their own mini-empire of collectibles
What they bought and set against one another's collections in small, localized wars against naturally knowing each other, interacting with one another
Belongings sucking out the life out of everyone

He travelled the country with only the shirt on his back and holes in his shoes
He lived to be 90 years old
He was their idea of failure never damaged at all by the claims of material offspring
Screaming, crying, demanding an upgrade, demanding a new model

For the people around you are things
And you are a thing to them
And a paycheck every two weeks fills your essence with a cancer
Each thing you buy takes seconds or minutes or months off your lifespan
Not only the death of the body but the death of who you are.