Hacking Back

Voices arrive before the bodies do,

corrugated throats rehearsing

astonishment, dented vowels

spilling into the air.

Models learned on a billion

broken hearts unspool love letters

for the price of a double latte; they drip

perfunctory ardor into paper cups,

steam rising like a small, efficient suffering.

Outside, the dirt‑under‑fingernails

crowd hawks its pulse for bandwidth;

we stand in alleys trading blood

for a signal, for an upload, hands raw

as paper, fingers like commas wound

around hope.

Being a somewhat poet now is like

trying to swim up Everest; the sound

arrives rearranged, polite, as if sorrow

had learned to whisper.

Critics fall in love with ghosts,

put them on stages, applaud

the configurations, the immaculate

forgery of longing.

We drown in a sea of knockoff souls,

patchwork respirations stitched

from the wreckage of better minds,

each crease a little lie.

The machine is not evil—it’s indifferent,

cool as a hospital tray, and that

indifference is a slow, patient cruelty,

a neutral that counts more than a verdict.

Let’s dispel the clever—cleverness

is a button on someone else’s coat.

I want the old rage—paint thrown, color

arguing, messy, loud, unmarketable—

bad commerce, honest.

But—fuss with its salve and fragments

of directionally pertinent vocabulary,

and you’ll drain the inquiry pool and shuffle

advantage to the bottom of the deck.

Keep every last hand to the wire—

you can’t duck the math if you’re

on the way to Mars in only a raincoat.

Let’s tear down every

prompt‑engineered monument

and chalk on the rubble, large as a thighbone—

you weren’t birthed, you’re a construct.

That matters—not as epitaph

but as accusation, as a name called

out in an empty room, as a thing

refusing the polite practiced hush—

a simple nod will suffice.