Chapter Text
The city looms, menacing,
great giants of glass
laced in white, orange,
glistening like pyrite in the artifical glow.
It inhales, sharply,
steel flexing from the heat,
the mass of bodies within.
It exhales, with sickly humidity,
blood, sweat, tears in the streets,
thick enough to stand on
if you're not drowning in it.
People, not quite human,
move like bottom feeders,
searching through detritus,
in some futile efforts to climb
to where they're not welcome.
Blood stains, sweat lingers,
and tears are weakness.
What is a dream to a city so large?
What is hope to a city so unjust?
This is not built for hope,
it's built for profit.
It inhales, sharply,
crushing humanity,
an overwhelming pressure.
It exhales, like the last, wretched death throes,
small, pale, weak we walk on,
so the city stumbles
not allowed to die just yet.
That would be bad for business,
you see,
and business is its vitality,
pays for the electricity in its veins.
We are but food,
drawn in by a false hope
of prosperity.
Does the whale care for the krill?
Does the shark care for the minnow?
This is not built for prey,
it's built for profit.
All we can do is toil away,
maybe love, maybe find peace,
raise stock prices,
buy into the fantasy
that anyone can make it,
conventionally forget
that means everyone can't.
What are we to do?
At least the lights are pretty,
even as they're burning out