*Feedback Loop*
A silence shaped like elevator jazz
hovers between pings—slightly digital, slightly
lonely like the last browser tab left open
by someone who never says goodbye.
Downstairs, a printer stutters like a robot
trying to love. Paper jams become
confessions: Help, I cannot
format myself.
Lunch is microwave ballet—neon onions
breathe through the plastic skin
of yesterday’s choice. Did I ever
choose this chair? This body? I
scroll like prayer, like penance,
my thumb a dumb prophet of repetition.
In a meeting, someone says synergy
and everyone quietly dies. Still,
we nod, trained birds in borrowed
faces. The office plant has learned
to lean away from us.
Later, I dream in captcha:
Click all images that show
a man pretending not to drown.
—The Clergyman