they said it was a force of nature,
true,
like tides or storms that no one could
subdue.
a new religion built on glass and debt,
where,
every human need could be met,
if converted into data,
risk,
and shares,
and stripped of all its sentimental cares.
they built their citadel on shifting sand,
and called it progress across the land of
fou.

the architects,
they never felt the strain,
the algorithm’s unforgiving rain
that falls on those who hustle and who strive,
in the gig-economy’s beehive.
they are insulated by their wealth and walls,
while the new serfdom’s silent calling falls
on millions scrolling,
desperate for a task,
wearing a digital,
precarious mask.

the cost is exported, buried deep,
the factory’s ghost, the ocean’s plastic seep,
the childhood stunted in the mining-town,
the endless field where every stalk is owned.
the jail-state’s walls spring from the market’s flaw,
the dish-washing-state’s numb,
silent awe.
the truth is a landfill, burning slow,
where,
all the externalized refuse goes.

the final border is not on any map,
it’s the cold,
silent profit, the brutal gap
between the resource-state,
stripped to the bone,
and the money-laundry-state,
alone
and gleaming with its ill-gotten bright gold.
a story of extraction,
centuries old.
the only resistance?
to exit,
to secede,
to grow a new and different,
mycelial seed.