manufactured ache

By: Kaia Carter

 

i’m losing my individuality

to thieves and beggars

smooth-handed things that take without asking

and sell it back to you polished, no trace of you.

 

they’re as reliant on us

as we are them, now.

this isn’t symbiosis.

this is slow erosion.

 

each time i surrender my spark, i forget how to strike the flint.

 

and isn’t the beauty of living

the work it takes to get there?

the dirt in your palms,

the aching crawl towards almost-right?

 

they don’t know the difference

between a poem and a product.

a heartbeat and a pattern.

 

i used to write with hunger.

with the kind of ache that only makes sense after it leaves you.

 

now machines mimic this ache with no stomach behind it.

it starves, but never suffers.

we keep feeding it pieces of ourselves

for answers we already know.