I do not have fifty dollars.
I send it anyway,
like lighting a candle with my last match
in a church that’s already for sale.
II.
They say the site might die
if we don’t feed the machines.
I don’t care about the machines.
I care about the kid at 3 a.m.
typing into a text box because
no one in their life listens when they speak.
I care about the woman
who writes one poem a year
and needs somewhere shy
to bury it where someone might find it.
I care about the people who are me
in different bodies,
stacking lines instead of sleeping
because this is the only place
the noise in their skulls
turns into anything but static.
If the servers go dark,
it’s not just “downtime.”
It’s eviction for every version of us
that lives only in those drafts.
III.
I left one empire
because it started to practice
its old fascinations out loud again.
Now I stand in another country
on the edge of illegality,
refreshing exchange rates,
refreshing page views,
refreshing my own courage.
I cannot afford this tithe.
But I also can’t afford
a world where every corner of the internet
is owned by the same three companies
selling the same eight dreams
in slightly different fonts.
So I give what I shouldn’t,
not because it’s enough—
it isn’t—
but, because I refuse
to let the last small rooms
go dark without throwing
at least one stupid,
beautiful handful of cash
at the breaker.
IV.
This is not a call to arms.
I’m too tired for that.
It’s just a record:
that on a random day,
a broke exile with a bad passport
chose to pay a bill he couldn’t afford
for a website full of strangers
because he believed—
really believed—
that poems left with nowhere to go
is the quietest kind of atrocity.
If this is our final hurrah,
let it be honest:
we didn’t lose because we didn’t care.
We lost because caring
started charging market rates.
And still, like idiots,
like saints,
like something in between,
we reached for our wallets
in the dark.