Existential Kidnapping (a poem)

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Pay respect.
The eyes, the cameras,
the receptacle—
the draw, the vacuum of control.

I’m always observed,
feel like a nothing
in regard to freedom,
as you call it.

Governance.
Coop—
we will work or die.
Joiners from the beginning,
and the end of the first war.
People understood,
and became something other.

What you need.
He’s asleep now,
went bye-bye,
he is in a better place—

so you say,
so say we all,
amen, so be it.

Make another story,
times a thousand.
Split that narrative across the sky,
use the stars—
we’ll find a way,
I suppose,
like they did,
way back then.

All the time,
we ain’t learned nothing.

Ages to end—
and not a goddamn thing?
Really?
Nothing?

Ain’t learned a thing,
that’s for real, man.
I’m serious—
not one thing.
We are still in the soup,
apparently.

Compounded—
the bangs just bigger this time.
The chemicals,
always the same in principle.

Flame on.
Fire. Fire.
Fire everything.

From the first flaming brand,
to the paymasters—
AI-3000
into prison.
Every single T cell deployed.
Do they know
the war
they just got put in?

Mad cancer,
mad rogue.
Eliminate this anomaly—
for survival,
and the prospect
of one more smile.

Cut it out.
Don’t be stupid.
Can we get it,
or is this
the first
in a long line
of feeling unforgiven?

A doom spreads.
A binary phobia.
Hijacked.

This plane just got another flight plan,
and nobody asked for it.

This—
existential
kidnapping.