*Terms & Afflictions*
Monday exists like a bootprint on sanded laminate,
where the light undoes itself in lanyard loops—
always blinking, never arriving.
They send emails with subject lines like
Urgent: Update Your Humanity,
and we comply because the algorithm’s sigh
sounds vaguely like mother.
Lunch is overpriced
calamari in biodegradable guilt.
I name the receipt *my last will and trust*,
file it beneath *heartburn and Monday*.
The man across from me speaks only in hyperlinks.
He clicks his coffee until it opens painlessly. I nod—
we both resemble failed icons.
Outside, pigeons carry GPS-enabled dreams higher
than our quarterly ambitions.
I press my thumb into a screen—
nothing lets blood like consent.
_Love, once a windowpane, is now
an app I forgot to force quit._
—The Clergyman