We keep choosing 

And this is what we get;

Vacant offices and ghost exchanges,

Avatars of buyer personas

Walking through malls like vast catacombs

Waiting to be resurrected by a flash sale.

The same joke is told everywhere we go,

Like personalized license plates,

The same meme copied like fractals

Down the digital abyss, spilling

Into the real, making copies

Of people like fractals down the human abyss.

The same warmed-up banana bread 

In every city, the same vague notions 

Of fame blurring into trust.

The same hotel lobbies, the same

Smile for the same family photo

On the same vacation we all take.

And yet, we’ve never had it so good,

Never has it been easier

To find your people, nevermind 

Your people are disembodied like air bubbles at the bottom of the sea,

Never has there been so much knowledge readily available,

Nevermind the lies, the ignorance, and the preference for the banal.

Never have we been able to purchase more

Cheaper, faster, better stuff

Filling our houses with everything we want, nevermind

We have no idea what we really want.

Never have our lives been

Easier, simpler, bigger, safer,

Nevermind the darkest part of ourselves

Elected like our shadow self

Exposed in the stage lights of the public theater,

Suddenly, everything we secretly desired

Becomes government policy as the darkened audience

Of our democratic psyche laughs and applauds,

As workers are kidnapped off the streets, 

Thrown into the back of black minivans,

Masked police execute citizens

Because they didn’t say please,

And we keep telling ourselves

We've never had it so good.

We keep telling ourselves

There will always be more money,

We keep telling ourselves 

To keep choosing,

We keep telling ourselves

This is what we get.