4th October 2026

midnight cleaning
the state of the bathroom
prevents a shower

© Rachel Green October 2026

They Just Stopped Buying

liquid fabric softener: not a product
even boomers like to use: we'd rather
the convenience of capsules, thanks.

Paper napkins always seemed too posh
for daily use (though I prefer the cloth
and wash, the family doesn't like the feel
and tear through sheets of kitchen roll instead.

Cereal is still a thing that I enjoy and so too
does millennial child (though theirs is sweet
with extra sugar piled on top and mine is plain)
but then I eat too much and put on weight and cry.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend
but who these days don't care
that natural ones are mined with blood
when lab-grown stones still shine as bright.

Canned tune here is still a thing
because the children scoff it up in hot and cold
though I choose not to eat of former life
(save in apocalyptic times) I buy it still for them.

Cable television was fine when I was twenty, still
the fibreoptic comes with subscripted fees
and personally I would stick to that which I can stream
of download to a personal device.

Formal china sets were saved for best when I was young;
reserved for Christmas day and otherwise in cupboard kept.
My sister kept my mum's: now both are dead
those fancy plates were landfill long ago.

Orange juice a concept that the rich folk had
and fancy hotel meals with breakfast laid downstairs
but what Del Monte men may say
will touch me not and orange squash will here be bought.

We still have landline telephone
that's used by telemarketers and those
from foreign seedy businesses to scam
the unsuspecting few and also me.

I never bought a paper and preferred
to watch the news instead and trust the BBC
to be impartial (I, the fool) and not I read the sites
that tell me everything I do is wrong instead.

Cow's milk still consumed in bulk by those
who loke their sugared drinks; the chocolate shakes
and salted café latte with a dash or two of syrup
and a chocolate drink for bedtime too.
 
Alarm clocks are no more a thing -- we all have phones
to tell the time and sound the morning bell
and tech moves on forever
and those carriage clocks are just memorials to time.

The list goes on, and so does life:
what use is it to moan about the 'good old days'
though now we refute thousand year old science
and laud the plagues we thought had gone for good.

© Rachel Green October 2026

They Just Stopped Buying Them