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EXPERIMENTAL POETRy
The House of Houses
“They promised the legacy would be the lights, not us. We were counted long before anyone thought to see us, sold back to ourselves, walking corridors where every door opens onto another door, and none of them lead out.”
You and I were born in the margin of a spreadsheet.
I remember the blade of the shop shutter coming down at four,
the sound a guillotine makes
when all it ever cuts is prices.
Downtown, download and go.
That was the slogan, before they stopped needing slogans.
Now the algorithm of luck decides who eats,
and it has never once looked at my face
except to scan it.
My neighbour on the ninth floor paints on her door,
in letters as tall as a child,
I AM BLACK, AND I AM PROUD,
and every morning a cleaning drone comes to erase her,
and every night she writes herself back, wider.
Say it louder, I tell her through the wall.
She says she isn’t talking to me.
She says she’s talking to you,
