Habituation

A poem about how we tend to develop a tolerance to many of the pleasures we seek after.

Barely perceptible movements feed endless wants
No industry required to pull in emotions, images, sounds
Transporting, blocking, conjuring, shutting out
The high note hits the right nerve
The flesh rises, the hairs stand up

Synthetic primal stimulus emulates life itself
Adipose, salty sweet mimicking the low hanging fruit
Undulating senses with no reference point
Or still more efficiently - winnowed, distilled, refined
Hits pleasure centers with no pretense of necessity
Burning liquid, snowy peaks, resinous haze

Others sit on packed earth or cracked concrete
Huddled around a blue light, distantly watching
Those who only want, needing nothing
The excess goes to fill an ever-increasing void
The contents merely widen the space
Pushing ever, ever out and downwards

What is never enough fills and spills over
Dopamine rises to a line pushed ever higher
Soon the surfeit recedes, dead fish litter the shore
Under metallic gray skies. Swimming, swirling, grasping
Reaching hands find clumps of wet sand