Can Coupons Really Be Redeemed?

Who doesn't like coupons to go with lunches and dinners?

What's not to like about dinner and dessert at the price of just dinner?

Take away the coupon, and suddenly the appetite for dessert dies down dry, dehydrated.

Is food only as good as its coupons? 

Are coupons only as good as the food they come holding hands with?

If the former were true, 

capitalism would have been a starving boy 

begging for what you and I save in coupons, for lunch and dinner.

Some people are like coupons;

the only time they're worth a grain of salt

is when they come nested in substance.

They have no currency of their own,

so they attach themselves to things that do,

mistaking proximity for possession,

and the reflected light of another's existence

for evidence that they, too, have a sun.

They mimic the behaviour of moss:

find something sturdy, overwhelm it,

and call the infestation a relationship.

They contribute nothing to the architecture,

but once they've covered enough of it,

they begin speaking as though they laid the foundation.

Their greatest talent is not creation,

but the careful cultivation of appearances.

They learn the vocabulary of the accomplished,

borrow the convictions of the courageous,

wear the scars of battles they watched from a distance,

and rehearse the biographies of people

whose actual lives would expose them as frauds.

They are all packaging, no product; hollow bone, no marrow.

And if you think

this is just empty calories

sold as a vital nutrient,

give it time,

for the diet gets a whole lot funnier.

They eventually forget they were ever pretending.

The borrowed opinions become convictions.

The borrowed vocabulary becomes a personality.

The borrowed prestige becomes a résumé.

The parasite begins introducing itself

as part of the organism.

Delusion is a funny little thing. 

Call it home long enough, 

and it winds up on a wrought iron bed 

in a dingy asylum smelling of altered carbons.

Strip away the names they invoke,

the institutions they flaunt,

the accomplished people they orbit,

the borrowed language they deploy like credentials,

and what remains?

Just a coupon.

Nothing to offer with.

No one to offer it to. 

Nothing left to redeem it against.

No redemption. No resurrection.

Even Christ had to break bread, turn water into wine,

and give the world a body to hang its faith upon.

Coupons, on their best days, are crucifixes before the crucifixion:

promises of salvation that mistake the price for the sacrifice.