Vending Machines

REVIVE, INDULGE, NOURISH, ENERGIZE, HYDRATE, REPLENISH, GRIND, SATISFY

Words big and bold linger above vending machines I've walked by. Demanding and prodigious, words are yelling at me from far away. No stylistic quality or characteristic of personalization is visible in the text. None. Not in the color, not in the height of the letters, not in the widths of their bodies,  not in that all to familiar blue background. Somehow, as devoid as they are of aesthetic quality purposefully placed for both mental stimulation and social controversy, the words placed above vending machines may be the closest thing to graffiti I've seen at this school.

REVIVE, INDULGE, NOURISH, ENERGIZE, HYDRATE, REPLENISH, GRIND, SATISFY

I know there is real graffiti out there! Like the kind we're used to seeing! The shit we want to see. But possibly never have words so blatantly obnoxious enticed the lustful hunger for a bag of chips or a Diet Coke. Imagine if we just took away the vending machines. The SIGN no longer correlate with it's specific machine (let the coffee machine under GRIND dissolve smoothly from the mind's eye). Now, the letters are just screaming loudly, asking impossible and irrational courses of actions. Tell me, what should I grind? Who should I grind on? What needs must I satisfy! They can yell all they want, but I will remain a class act.  I will not succumb to the demands of legal vandalism. 

REVIVE, INDULGE, NOURISH, ENERGIZE, HYDRATE, REPLENISH, GRIND, SATISFY

I'm turning my head around the corner. Let's see who the next unwilling victim is and how he or she is called by the letters who wait patiently, in complete silence, like hunters getting ready to take their prey out. 
"STOP, IT'S A TRAP!"

I want to scream. The SIGNS will be louder than my action of doing so. Advertisement and a mother's nagging, a combined force that makes these commands in english so obvious that its no longer obvious. Food for the subconscious, that's what the signs provide. They are there like any piece of graffiti seen in an urban jungle that's mangled with turmoil and chaos. The signs represent what we want from life, we want to scream at ourselves. I want someone walking by the vending machine to yell at me:
"I'M ALREADY TRAPPED!"

REVIVE, INDULGE, NOURISH, ENERGIZE, HYDRATE, REPLENISH, GRIND, SATISFY

 People in cities who see graffiti might not give it a second glance. It could very well be because they don't need exquisite scribbles painstakingly and swiftly created under the cover of darkness to manifest the turmoil they are drowning in. That they see in their everyday life. People who fall prey to the SIGNS could feel the same way. They don't need a SIGN yelling down their throats, informing them of all the shit they need to do. They just want a bag of chips. One more time.

REVIVE, INDULGE, NOURISH, ENERGIZE, HYDRATE, REPLENISH, GRIND, SATISFY