Prose – Vital Machines


– Vital Machines –

I awake to find myself again,
dwelling deep within the heart
of this vital machine;
I am perpetual,
expanding wider across the tangled web
of interconnected social circuitry,
a map made of living wires
with no traces of my own design.

When I sleep I listen
to the world in motion;
Rending metal growls,
rusted engines fit to start.
The sound of sirens wail,
carrying the sense of emergency
that they entail.

I sleep and listen to the world in motion,
until the music of those vital machines
is the only sound that remains;
I am perpetual,
in fear of motion,
again,
and again,
and again.