Poem: Heaven Looks a lot Like the Mall by Dana Chiueh

Heaven Looks a lot Like the Mall

Words by Dana Chiueh
QuailBellMagazine.com
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*Editor's Note: This has been previously published in Apprehension Magazine. 

Walking inside, the smells of fluorescent bulbs blind me
These wide corridors bisected by carts selling Pillow Pets
and the newest hand creams,
eager attendants, noncommittal customers still thinking about
that gorgeous Anthro sweater they can't afford (yet,
they tell themselves, but soon.)
​

I stand at the corner of Vera Bradley and Teavana
clutching a Dixie cup of quickly souring Raspberry Lemonade
watching cohorts of crop tops and beanies strut by,
bodies bent in glossy red laughter,
pink striped shopping bags swinging from their perfectly manicured hands;
mothers in messy buns pushing strollers, their overeager toddlers bouncing to
those shops with the bright colours drawing them like moths to neon
 
and the world isn't complicated for them yet,
in here with the temperature control and pristine faux-marble floors
ambient lighting and shopgirls in aprons who smile their Welcomes
and polish fingerprints off glass windows in fluid movements

No, outside is humidity and humiliation
not in here, where the world collides and coexists
and Tiffany's is next to Build-A-Bear and Journeys