I dream or derelict malls
spreading for miles,
deserted shrines
that still, in their day,
could put up a fight
and managed a slow
decline and silent death,
as inside a cocooned illness.
For years yet
we insisted
in keeping working
to spend our money there
under the benevolent glare
of neon billboards
and digital everything.
By then all shops
had sensors and AI
and knew more about you
than you in your dreams,
than Jung sitting
in the back of your mind.
We roam the endless night
like lost uber drivers,
and for a second consider
jumping from bridges
like Chinese delivery workers
or Foxconn employees,
our mindless screen time like
GPS on fentanyl.
I dream or derelict malls
like in a novel by Ballard,
escalators with weeds,
lifeless dark poodles
of stagnant water,
like living tissue,
and plastic remnants
that will outlive us
for alien archaeologists
to examine
and be puzzled by.
The malls were a cosmos
in themselves,
echoes of the piped muzak
are audible in the middle of the night.
We are not used to nights this dark
yet creaking.
