black friday...wedding bells

i was driving to a wedding the other day, the day after thanksgiving...exhausted from the previous day's festivities, strangled by a tie, freezing through my thin black suit...wondering why anyone would have a wedding the day after thanksgiving...i watched the lines of autos crawling in the other direction, sometimes standing still, waiting to go to or from the mall...i saw the burned out factories, the gas 'n go's, the high tension lines seeming endless on this united states highway...route number one...miles and miles of sprawl, humans and wasteland intertwined...the waste of the brain...i hadn't eaten since thanksgiving, staying up late the night before visiting with old friends...high on wine...and so i slept 'till noon waking only to shower and put on a starched white shirt, to head for the church...now presently starving heading for the reception, knowing i would not eat for hours...passing endless hot dog joints in burned out trailers, white castles, and rundown diners...mocking forever mocking...you realize just how sad life is, traveling through the rust bowl on a cold friday afternoon...passed the empty houses and empty faces...passed the clutter that fills the east jersey skyline...passed cemetery after cemetery...off to god knows where...never to return...