Professional Sand

Writing with blood in the Age of Pretty Word Machines.

This poem was written with shaking human hands. Please forgive all of my imperfections. They are proof I have skin in the game.

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Lately I feel like I’m watching
a room full of humans
using robots
to compliment each other’s robots.

“You’ve got mail,”
but it’s two refrigerators
falling in love
while we clap for the condensation.

Somewhere a server farm hums
like the polite god of Mayberry.

Innovation didn’t come as a shiny robot.
It showed up dressed as animatrojic Shakespeare.

But I keep staring at 
the color dial it uses.

Everything is drifting into sepia.
A uniform of exhausting sameness.

Our rants are balanced. 
Our grief now has proper posture.

Even our panic about societal collapse
is neatly paragraphed.

We used to write like we were trying to survive something. Now we write like we’re trying to pass senior composition class.

Interesting used to have a serious limp.
Now it moonwalks with double-jointed ankles.

We have replaced our blood with beige binary 
and traded the surreal for symmetry.

I read a robot poem I found online today.
It’s beautiful.
I read another.
Also beautiful.

I had a robot write a poem for me.
I read it.
Beautiful again.

Yet yet yet yet yet yet yet and yet

None of it felt like flesh.
It all wore the same nail polish.

Professional Sand.
Dry in sixty seconds.
Emotionally available.
Zero fingerprints.

I’m terrified because…..