(intro)
A paper bag murmurs its creed of purity,
a brown sanctum folded around curated groceries,
ink slashed with the names of demons it claims to have cast out.
But the rustle betrays a deeper confession:
a liturgy of contradictions,
a sacrament of greenwashed hope.
Listen. The seams are speaking.

(verse 1)
Inside this bag drifts monoculture residue,
the pollen of fields starved of diversity,
soil stripped down to a single trembling note.
Inside this bag coils gentrification pheromones,
the scent of neighborhoods pushed past affordability
by the price of wellness-as-accessory.
Inside this bag hides imported righteousness,
virtue sourced from global supply chains wrapped in recycled fonts.
Inside this bag sleeps composed-and-composted aspiration,
organic promises with expiration dates.

(chorus)
And what’s not in the bag?
The world we keep promising and never build.
What’s not in the bag?
The justice folded out of the narrative.
What’s not in the bag?
The sweat, the soil, the unseen economies
that nourish the illusion of purity.

(verse 2)
Ink letters run like river sediment across the kraft-paper plain,
spelling what Whole Foods vows to forbid—
chemical specters, synthetic devils, preservatives in exile.
But the real toxins carry no molecular formulas:
they are globalized organic certs with questionable audits,
they are fair-wage exceptions woven into seasonal loopholes,
they are worker precarity bundled in biodegradable hope,
they are carbon miles dressed in the vocabulary of localism.
And in the produce aisle’s soft glow,
commodified virtue gleams like a fruit no orchard ever grew.

(chorus)
And what’s not in the bag?
The world we keep promising and never build.
What’s not in the bag?
The justice folded out of the narrative.
What’s not in the bag?
The sweat, the soil, the unseen economies
that nourish the illusion of purity.

(bridge)
Hold the bag up to the light.
See the silhouettes of what it cannot ban—
the Amazonian surveillance dust settling between the aisles,
the ghost of independent co-ops swallowed whole,
the algorithm adjusting prices like a quiet deity,
the ache of lands farmed bare for labels that read “clean.”
Hear it crackle:
not with honesty, but with capitalism in compostable drag.
It is lighter than air, yet heavier than truth.

(verse 3)
A bag is a metaphor for the body of a system:
thin, recyclable, absolution printed on every fold,
but stretched around contradictions that exceed its tensile strength.
If purity were more than branding architecture,
we’d list the unacceptable ingredients of the economy on every checkout screen.
If wellness were anything but curated desire,
we’d build a world where nourishment wasn’t rationed by income.
Instead, we purchase absolution by the pound
and call it change.

(chorus – extended)
What’s not in the bag?
The world we keep promising and never build.
What’s not in the bag?
The truth beneath the green veneer.
What’s not in the bag?
The future we owe to the hands that feed us.
What’s not in the bag?
Everything we pretend we cannot see.
What’s not in the bag?
The revolution we keep postponing
for the next sale on righteousness.

(outro)
So the bag says:
“It’s what’s not in the bag that matters.”
But the deeper scripture reads:
Until we name the hidden ingredients—
inequality, extraction, performance, denial—
no banned list will sanctify the system,
and no grocery aisle will ever taste like justice.