My bag for life has a hole in it
I have been worried ever since
I bundled my sodden wetsuit into it
and tore it on a fence
Is it a premonition, I wonder,
of how things will play out?
That I too will soon develop a hole
and risk falling in, or maybe out.
I cannot afford this sort of worry
I spent my only 10 pence
on a receptacle that I was told
would see me through until my end
My end may be a little closer now
or at least the wear and tear would so suggest,
but if I thought Tesco would have told my fortune
I’d have been wary to invest
But little do you know
what goes on behind the scenes,
they’re adding us up one by one
every time we buy our beans
The barcode scanner reads your palm;
the crystal balls are crystal marrows;
and how would you like to pay for that sir?
Debit card or tarot?
If you find yourself at the smaller till,
where they keep the scratch cards and cigarettes,
bare in mind you’re here to gamble
do well in placing your bets
The rest of the shop is still a lottery though,
from the cereal to the sprouts,
Be especially aware of the bags on offer
at the ends of all the checkouts
Once they’ve scanned your items
they’ll ask “do you need a bag?”
And with empty pockets you say “yes please”
there’s no going back after that
You hand your ten pence over,
bearing the weight of your soul,
the cashier motions for you to take one,
it will be yours till you grow old
You do as suggested and take it
open it up, load your groceries in and lift,
bring it up and over the counter
and feel the weight of it
Five months later it’s handles stretch
every time I fill it up,
it is thinning like old soft skin
and when I let go it bundles up
I’ve patched it up as best I can -
it’s a triggers broom of sorts -
there may be a life beyond what appears,
and if not, this one’s disappointingly short
I suppose it could be false advertising
Conglomerate immorality?
Or pessimistically hoping we’ll immolate
come our carriers fatality
They’ll find me still clutching it’s handles
when I am long deceased,
they might even bury me in it -
or at the very least my feet.
They could wheel me through in a £1 trolley,
cash my clubcard points in,
scan me through as ‘large potatoes’
"butternut squash” or “garden bin”
They could wheel me to the church
where after the hymns they’d collectively whelp
”it is impossibly sad to see her go,
but every little helps!”
Or they could wheel me to the crematorium
for a bit of legal arson,
put some of me in a little pot
whilst the rest floats of as carbon
Finally, I could be taken back to Tescos
in my little urn
to be turned away promptly to the words;
“no receipt, no return“
I have a bag for life you see,
though it’s longevity is questionable
it’s seen me through an adventure or two
and death, I suppose, is inevitable
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
titsay