A Little Heaven (Fine Print)

There’s a price tag on heaven, weighing heavy
And don’t bother praying to it
Because it’s already preying
On your insecurities
It’s pulling out all the stops
And breaking you down
Like a systematic math problem
Into series of numbers, re-arranged into
A bar code, price check here, red beamed, dollar amount
And now your soul
has a price

It’s being channeled through the airwaves
Ridden with empty promises that smell of
Piss and Oxyclean
Your television set is wearing a mask of a pseudo-utopia
And you’re chained to the wheel of The Price Is Right
It’ll never stop spinning in this freak circus
Where your heart is going for sale at only 99.99
And it’s buy 1 get one free
If you call in the next 5 minutes
They’ll include a bottle of your broken dreams
But wait! There’s more!
In exchange for your firstborn
They’ll throw in your nostalgic childhood memories
Digitally re-mastered, colored enhanced, straight from the Disney vault, director’s cuts
Complete with deleted scenes of dreams you never had
Filled with commercialized brand name products
That now define your era of birth!

So let me take this opportunity to welcome you
To the 21st century
Where if you wear your heart on your sleeve
They’ll be sure to tear it right off and replace it
With their pre-washed, pre-soaked, pre-packaged, brand name labels
Designed with the intention of seducing you into their warm blanket
Of cheap over-priced products expertly advertised
With the intention of re-enforcing
Societal dogmas and pre-produced prejudices
Covered with a mask of robotic perfection
Lightly sprinkled with the essence of sex and freedom
Perfect women,
Men, children, families
All of them staring at you through the television screen
Eyes empty, pupils wide enough that if you just too the time to look
A bit closer you could see the rusted mechanics in their heads
Wheels slowly turning,
pumps slowly pumping
Projecting empty promises of hollow happiness
And robotic sex that leaves you feeling
Unfulfilled and unhappy
So that they can feed you the illusion
That your normal reactions of general misery
Are a form of depression
This way they can sell you plastic pills
Promising warm sunshine and perfect days
In the embodiment of a woman that’s “just like you”

And it’s kind of sad
That all you have to do is look in the mirror
To see the great flaw in this Willy Wonka
Con-artist heaven
But everyone’s moving too fast to
Read the fine print

So we keep on paying for shit we don’t need
And cars we don’t drive
And dumping our money into landfills of waste
Feeding the fat-asses of
Money making machines wearing suits
Made of your blood and sweat
And they call this the American Dream

So the cycle continues
And the wheel is still spinning
The price tag is still hanging heavy from that little heaven we used to believe in
It’s now been bought out by billboards that clutter the horizon
Hunting down your imperfections and banking on your ignorance
The American Dream has long ago
Been raped, beaten,
And left to die on dark, blood-covered highways
Hot with crime and covered up with
Shiny cars and flashy signs
That’s slowly eating you
From the inside
Until there’s nothing left
But limp, hollow skin
Covered with cheap, chipping make-up
Melted in a pathetic lump
On the sex-layered street
Just another casualty of this multi-media plague
But we drive by like it were road kill
Because we’re moving too fast to see
What’s right under our noses

There’s a price tag on heaven
But by all means,
Ignore the fine print