Recycling Needs

How common now to sort the day's refuse:

 plastic dreams,

 cardboard ambitions,

 aluminum pride,

 bubble-wrapped insecurities shipped overnight

from someone else's suggestion.

How rare the sorting of soul:

 the ache for more when enough sits quietly in the cupboard,

 the heart's quietude drowned by algorithmic shouts that say:

you lack, you lack, you lack.

To awaken the sleeping pulse not with caffeine or credit,

 but with the rhythm of restraint,

 a beat that does not chase but listens,

 like rain on a roof that knows the drought is not solved by flood.

To revisit memory like a thrift store of the self,

 where old joys hang wrinkled but intact,

 and the price tags of past purchases still dangle,

 reminding us what was bought but never truly needed.

To dismantle the mind’s vending machine,

 its blinking lights,

 its coin slot promises,

 its endless spiral of snacks that feed nothing but the illusion of hunger.

Such is the quiet revolution:

 to remain awake in a world that sells sleep in silk-lined boxes.

To choose the worn coat over the new trend,

 the simple meal over the curated plate,

 the silence over the sponsored sound.

How obvious to some that the curb is not just for trash

 but for discarded selves who bought too much to feel like enough.

How misunderstood by others that excess is not abundance,

 it is noise,

 it is clutter,

 it is the echo of someone else's desire masquerading as your own.

How aware those who like sparrows weaving nests from yesterday’s receipts,

 know that permanence is not purchased,

 it is planted in the soil of sufficiency.