Let me live as a turtle

where a home rests on my shoulders

and green radiates from the soles of my feet.

As if I were a hiker navigating the appalachian trail

sporting one earring and an oak tree leg tat,

or huckleberry fin feasting on berries in a knapsack

letting the blue guide him, the painted and the flowing.

But right now, that is a fantasy

because i am 

an obese Black Bear couch potatoeing through the winter 

and an Ariel with thingamabobs of plenty

believing materials satisfy

and complete this emptiness.

Believing that I need 

three lamps 

twenty-nine pictures on my wall

four blankets

sixteen pairs of sweat proof socks

eleven pairs of crew socks

sixteen t-shirts

twenty-nine nice shirts

thirty-one books

six pillows

and more

and more

and more.

All for one, singular me.

how luxurious.

yet, how Normal.

How sad a realization when you realize

your mustard yellow bikini was made by a child named Mantheesh in Bengaluru 

and eighty-two percent of your closet stays musty and stagnant

and that I spend three-folds the time shopping than fish-and-chip people do

and consume twofold times more than people did fifty years ago

and that the red, white, and blue makes up five percent of the earth’s people 

yet inhales thirty percent of the resources

while dumping the equivalent in waste.

As i sit on this pile of crap,

I heed a warning to us all:

Excuse yourself from 

the Isolating Wood and Dying Reef.

Welcome your shell, 

slowly yet steadily arriving 

towards a life stripped of excess.

because living in the green 

is a lighter load

for us 

All.