Through pastel headphones

here’s my feed verified — life’s redeemable chit. I just want

something more human than persuasion-architecture.

The scanner slides over barcodes, crushes and spits

out choices and decisions that self-authenticate. I arrive

where content has so little to do with contentment

                                          —  welcome to life on the server farm.
There must be a map

or hidden river to fracture the systems that separates domains.

Others tell me contentment is a kind of surrender

and to steady myself against influencer sway.

I am searching for a reality that may not exist — fireflies

and cloud reflections. But really, why give up on the future

when the almost-urban non-spaces of another windswept plaza

already null and void us.