Maintenance winds the coil tight
just enough to last the night.
Each pill a screw, each session oil,
to keep you moving, fit to labor.
When you expire, they don’t delay—
a new gear clicks and turns away.
No mourning here, no pause, no cry,
the broken tossed, left to rust.
The caretaker hums, wipes down the frame,
oils the teeth, forgets your name.
Scraping metal, shrieking steel,
echoes what the soul can feel.
It knows it’s damned, yet must endure
each tortured turn, precise and pure.
Torqued to ensure no escape.
Creaking gears will call for R&D
adding a few extra drops of oil and filing spurs
enough to mute the clutch – to drown the creaks and aching moans
You can hear it—how the other cogs weep,
their sorrow caught within the grinding teeth.
Every rotation, a cry,
from something human left to die,
Corrosion sets in, cell by cell,
a silent rot too faint to tell.
Each slow, highly torqued rpm
strips the voice, the face, the presence
leaving metal in the place of souls.