this is an open letter to the hipster man
in line in front of me at the thrift store
I saw you standing there, fishing
for your cash, your crumpled bills
teased out from your tiny pockets
slim smashed up against your thigh
stitched tight across your skinny
legs, the jeans looked at me, pleading
for a twelve year old girl with pig tails
or justin beiber, which is the same
I hated your arrogance, your fickle irony
your sense of worth and self-satisfaction
exuding from beneath the brown tweed
and useless little scarf, colored red
the color of the blood of men, dried up
and squeezed beneath the flat cap
that once graced the head of a real man
as he worked and sweated and lived
a thousand lives for your smug cup
of starbucks indy mainstream emptiness
I was there for a coffee table, a humble plank
and four little legs, a scratch, and water stain
something to fill my empty low-rent apartment
creaking in the night with a thousand whimpers
for upkeep and proper heating, but you, you fake
were hunting for your properly aged bit of vintage
to preen before your trucker pated phony friends
never once thinking of the long hours shifting
from Santa Fe to Baton Rouge to Memphis
too many hours on shitty coffee and mesmerizing lines
sweating into the seat leather until back and seat mingled
staring through insect carcasses and pitted glass
take your tiny, ineffectual scarf, your uppity sneer
in the face of the homeless man, begging for your reality
and not your feigned fashionable pity, scraping
for the lion’s share of what you spend on your outdated
walkman tshirt tattoo boots beard shades and skinny jeans
and leave this store, where sometimes vintage means
real savings for poorer folk who are glad of the discount price
and chance to use another’s cast off goods for another year
in place of making do with plastic forks and fast food condiments
oh, and the wretched of the world, they wish you stayed in bed
in America, and left well enough alone. Your kind don’t help.
fuck off
sincerely,
me.
a simple man 