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Popularity

Sweatpants and fifteen-dollar
Wally-world slip-ons do the job
when I’m home alone and happy.

A child, I believed them
when they said I’d
run faster and jump higher

In them Keds,
for a tenth of what they pay
for fly higher and faster

Nike Dunks, which tell me
things and give me thoughts
they don’t want to hear or know.

Now you must love me. Ima woke.
I spent a week’s pay for
these kicks. Now kiss them.

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I look both ways and wonder, am I the person I think I am?
Or am I a slave to popular marketing?
Mind the gaps before falling into a mentality where popularity trumps all things practical.