Infamous for soul-sucking, mind-numbing, rage-inducing boredom
The people all lined up in their rows, heads bowed deferentially
The nervous teenagers that pop their gum
The frazzled adults and thinly veiled annoyance, poking through their voices in
rough words like exposed drywall in a construction
Immigrants, struggling to understand
They are all one mass to those
Callous workers, pasty and apathetic that drone instructions like the monitors
Up above, god-like, announcing numbers and stations, like ants they all scurry
To obey, losing self to inefficient processes, lines and desks and numbers
The walls papered in posters promoting appointments and organ donors, all coated in despair
The ominous chairs, that lie in wait, all stocks and shackles, to capture and confine
All those ordeals; the endless wait, frozen clock, deadened air,
They submit themselves to automated compassion
With hope of escape, first this dull imprisonment for the sake of
The American dream: sleek new car racing down a country highway, sides thick with blurry grain, not isolation but independence
Not tedium but exhilaration
Not oppression but emancipation
Completely free