But wait, there's more...
He waits in the living room of memory,
a salesman with a static face,
antenna crown bent toward false heavens.
He was once the prophet of three channels,
the dinner-table preacher of frozen peas and foil trays,
the laugh track and lullaby,
the authority we never questioned.
Now he raises his finger—
not in blessing, not in warning,
but in rage.
A relic of broadcast kingship
flipping off the streaming age,
mocking us for moving on.
The paneling behind him still bears the marks—
children’s scrawls, stick figures carved by boredom,
time’s graffiti etched into paneled walls.
He is trapped there,
frozen in amber nostalgia,
waiting for us to look up,
to pay attention again.
But we don’t.
We scroll.
We swipe.
We forget.
And so he flickers in static silence,
the pitchman without a pitch,
the relic clinging to authority,
the ghost of television still begging to be seen.
JON.E.B.
