We go balls to the wall,

laughing and screaming in nightclubs

with AI-generated twisted grins,

dance music pounding our ears so we can't hear our thoughts,

alcohol soaking our organs so we can't feel our feelings,

stomping down with all our might that small voice which calls out to us

from beneath the pile of corporate logos and dead birds

that we keep in the space where our soul used to be.

Then out,

out into the world vaping and smoking,

running down the sidewalk

jumping over homeless people with Super Mario Bros sound effects

screaming I AM ALIVE I AM ALIVE

against all evidence to the contrary,

moving as fast as we can to keep us

from ever catching up to ourselves.

We go balls to the wall,

consuming and being consumed by end-stage metastatic capitalism,

mainlining Empire Inc into the veins between our toes because the ones in our arms collapsed long ago,

plunging straws into our loved ones to siphon out the validation we cannot give ourselves,

stumbling with gig economy exploitation hangovers and mouths that taste like Microsoft

through a dead-eyed civilization of blaring screens and focus-grouped hearts

where young women are sacrificed to gods made of algorithms,

where our minds are stripped of anything that won't help billionaires become trillionaires,

where everything breaks after 18 months but takes millions of years to decompose,

where we're all conditioned to think the same thoughts but hate each other more and more.

Balls to the wall with no brakes on,

shrieking and whooping into the night

laughing joyless laughter through pleasureless coke highs

past the neon signs and 3D billboards

dodging drones and punching panhandlers

strangling starving men on the subway

and disappearing into the dark

and becoming the darkness

and embracing our true calling:

Disciples of Dystopia.

Agents of Omnicide.

Apostles of the Apocalypse.

Kiss the Pentagon on your necklace and floor it.

No brakes, baby.

No brakes.

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Reading by Tim Foley.