aluminium

Eyes roll back

Fingers begin to cramp

There's a blitz, a bump, a blur

And there's words on a page.

The steady rush of urgency

Showing the potential of energy

In its most frantic form

There's nothing like the forced words

Choked into the bathroom basin like rat poison

Swallowed too quick

Spitting into the bloodstream, leaking

Leaking thoughts, the poisons

That the adults swallow like the pills they need for that rush

The brightness in their eyes

Synonymous with the halos of incandescent disinfectants.

Nothing like a burst of caffeine

Accompanied by the first-try, try it again

Drugs

In their little aluminium pouches

Their labelled daily packets

The things they think, all carbonated

But that addictive burn goes flat

Regardless, pop another.

Keep the movements going

The thoughts away, or else they'll know your real name

There's no use writing a journal when there's validation

To be had from the synthetic hearts I staple to myself.

Darkness and brutality, there's flesh wounds here.

Yet the only flesh left is jarred and corked

Kept on display as the final form of the human brain

Keep the AI water filters fanning onwards

There's no use for panic; we're all on the shelf

While the nuclear war wipes the titanium bots

Across the galaxies, into Mars.

I lost my spark

And became a tedious, fiddly, frantic plastic bag of adrenaline

Spared because the drugs in my bloodstream

Kept the robots high on happiness

Too bad they couldn't replicate

The lust, love, burning

Those kaleidoscopic cataclysms

Of the past, present, continuing.

The movements were once less rhythmic,

I was once less a survivalist,

More the creative artist challenging perceptions

Of perspectives.

Alas, the final hint of memories, hard drive saved

Into the code of the next vengeful bot that

Will copy my scrawled writings

And publish them alongside the next day's news

Of the dystopia we should have prevented.