This Is My Ballot

Sometimes all there is is to write a poem,
and I know it's not much,
but what else is there?
Maybe run for office?
Get elected so you can debate
whether or not to increase minimum wage
by 25 or 20 cents, and then feel
like you did something,
and think yourself so important
that you'd never take the time
to compare prices of walnuts
between competing grocery stores,
or keep a log of how many
white Christmases you've had over the years
because you've still have three years left
on a five year term ...

Then there's complaining about all the plastic bottles
others don't recycle, refusing to admit those blue bins
the same shape as a coffin,
that bottled water
feeding a fire the grim reaper warms his hands on,
before asking for a cigarette
or a drive to the other end of town,
although you learned long ago
to pretend you don't hear him,
to keep walking
on cracked pavement someone else is supposed to fix,
only to end the day in the same bed
as yesterday:
alone or not,
dreaming or not,
the darkness not enough to make you forget
how you voted for a loser in the last election.