Peter Panic [Part I: The Downward Spiral]

an indigent appeals to the sedentary arguing that their world is an illusion of boxes. the fact that they can make it real hides the fact that it was once a dream. they hide their memories in boxes, store them in the top most enclosure. their children are lured from their bedrooms by dreams they've acquired from TVs. when their parents are put into coffins, they will find these memories. their tears will wash them of dust, and their hands will slide through pages, and they will remember what they used to believe would be.

when they have learned to fear the reaper, they will remember being visited by peter pan. perhaps they've sacrificed their dreams and let matter play their rapture in wormy dirt. at midday, when the heavens collapsed and their enclosures could no longer satisfy, they fed their regrets to the child they saw in pictures and what they would do differently if given another chance.

who will come to their window now?
a goat man with the head of a snake
extends his hand and convinces them
that they can fly

but when they try
the cold call of gravity
lures them down
into that bottomless pit
inhabited by the broken shards
of a midday heaven