Day one: white walls
white mask
white light
white noise
in my head

My phone glows until my eyes hurt
then doesn't glow at all
anymore
at all.

tap
tap
tap-tap
on the radiator pipe
on the window frame
on my teeth

People grow from corners
like mold
like dreams
like friends
They dance without feet
They speak without sound
They fade by morning

thump
THUMP
THUMP-THUMP
on the desk
on the chair
on my chest

Through the wall
a fist pounds back:
"STOP!"
"STOP!"
"please
stop."

But then:
tap
tap-tap
comes the answer
comes the echo
comes the dance

Two strangers
in separate cells
finding rhythm
in white noise
in white light
in white walls

I watch puddles form
in parking lot craters,
count the ripples
from each raindrop's fall

my reflection fragments
into twenty versions
of the same tired face
attempting miracles

someone once said
walking on water
wasn't built in a day
like it was supposed to help

I keep trying anyway
watching my feet sink
in these midnight puddles
building impossible bridges
one step at a time

buy a book to save a crazy artist
whispers the voice of commerce
through the megaphone of desperation
while my other selves argue
about the exchange rate between
madness and marketability

and so it goes that creativity
dances with capitalism in a tango
of questionable consent while I
(or perhaps another I entirely)
file paperwork to trademark
the void staring back into me

the algorithm suggests therapy
but my existential crisis
has already monetized itself
into a subscription service
offering premium features
like coherent thought patterns

what is an artist anyway
but a collection of personas
trying to convince the void
to buy their merchandise
while reality keeps sending
invoices for existing

and so we wait in digital lines
our shopping carts full of souls
packaged in paperback format
while my various selves debate
whether to offer free shipping
on enlightenment prime

the madness comes with footnotes now
peer-reviewed and ready for purchase
(terms and conditions apply to
the dissolution of the self
please read the fine print
about reality's refund policy)

Words fall like copper coins in empty wells.
They make good sounds. They mean nothing.
The young must touch the flame themselves,
Each hand learning its own kind of heat.

I have seen better men than me
Try to pour wisdom into unwanting cups.
The cups were good. The wisdom was good.
But youth knows only its own thirst.

Each morning brings its own new light.
My shadows will not match their shadows.
My victories will not fit their wars.
My maps lead to countries that no longer exist.

They stand straight and proud and right,
The way I stood, refusing the hands
That reached toward me with ancient truths.
Now I am the hand. Now I am the truth.

The silence is better than the telling.
Time is a better teacher than tongues.
Let them build their own ladders of scar tissue.
Let them earn their own way to knowing.

I speak this to the empty room.
The room holds what it wants to hold.
And somewhere, someone younger listens,
And decides not to listen at all.

my comfort zone filed for divorce
said I was getting too comfortable
(ironic, but also fair
considering I built a blanket fort in there)

tried to evolve yesterday
but my final form kept glitching
now I'm stuck somewhere between
a butterfly and a tax accountant

your desire
to remain as you are
is what ultimately limits you
(he typed, while actively refusing
to learn how microwaves work)

change knocked on my door
wearing a door-to-door salesman costume
but jokes on them
I've been living in my ceiling for months

turns out personal growth
is just juicy peer pressure
from your future self
who already knows all your passwords

my potential called
it wants its metaphors back
but I told it I'm currently busy
being professionally mediocre

and there you stand in your childhood room where posters peel like old dreams falling and mama's voice still echoes up the stairs boy come down to dinner but you can't come down anymore because the walls are closing in with memories that scratch like vinyl records spinning backwards and the air is thick with what-could-have-beens and supposed-to-bes and every mirror shows a face you're supposed to wear but can't recognize anymore and the pressure builds and builds and builds like feedback through blown speakers until your bones start humming with the need to RUN

TO BREAK
TO SCREAM
TO FLY

because these streets these familiar streets these suffocating streets that taught you how to walk are now teaching you how to SPRINT and every mile marker becomes a battle cry becomes a thunder roll becomes an earthquake beneath your feet because you can't become a butterfly inside the cocoon that tried to make you into something else something smaller something safer something DEAD and now

THE HORIZON CALLS
THE ROAD SCREAMS
THE FUTURE BURNS

until there's nothing left but ashes of who you used to be and from those ashes from those beautiful terrible necessary ashes you finally finally FINALLY begin to rise

Every morning I wake up to notifications designed by gods
who think they know what I want to click on next—
**** on my racism app again?
or is it racism on my **** app?
The algorithms got confused
mixing up all our beautiful human hate
with our beautiful human desire
until every swipe is just dopamine roulette.

You know they've got teams of people
sorting through pictures of ******* and **** flags
trying to figure out which ones violate
their "community guidelines"—
as if any community ever got together
and decided what guidelines they wanted
between pictures of their breakfast
and their cousin's manifesto.

Remember when we had to work
to find things to be angry about?
Now they feed it to us like digital cereal
Pre-sorted, pre-digested
Pre-approved outrage
In bite-sized pieces of careful hate
That won't get flagged by the system
Because the system is too busy
Looking for exposed skin
In renaissance paintings.

The future isn't what we expected—
It's just endless scrolling
Through everyone's worst moments
Carefully curated by machines
That learned to profit
From our emptiness.