The Road

by Cheryl Merrick

Those on the road
rush home each evening
to waste their time,
either sitting mesmerized in front of their TV,
 or flitting from post to post,
caught like moths in their computer's glow.

Each morning they arise and begin another day
stuffed with fast food, rush hours, throbbing music,
appointments, lessons,  work, and shopping
till their closets bulge with unneeded things,
their heads spin and their eyes glaze.


Some, looking beyond the mark,
seek a fantasy life complete with fantasy partners.

Living through pasteboard Soap Opera stars,
silly women waste away.

Some, donning a new persona,
 form "relationships"
with other's fantasy selves.

Men, and some women,
longing for a titillating rush,
take the  degrading road
into the pornography dump.

Others read romance novels,
ever longing for their fantasy prince,
while ignoring the real "flawed" men
who desperately need their support.

On this road of instant gratification and entitlement,
children are seen as mere burdens,
women as mere voluptuous toys,
and men as mere cardboard princes.

Real people with real needs,
who get sick and old,
who are neither witty or thin,
but who need your love,
pale before the garish Hollywood images.

But those who pause long enough
to look behind the image,
discover it is hollow
and the road they were rushing on,
leads no where.