“A poem about contemplating death while taking a dump in a really nasty gas station bathroom after losing your job because of AI”

Upon the pallid, cracked porcelain throne,  
Beneath fluorescent hum, I sit alone,  
Walls tattooed in graffiti’s angry sprawl,  
A kingdom of mildew and vinegar pall.  
  
The air is thick—old secrets fester here—  
A lone fly circles, drawn by dread and fear,  
While paper—thin as dreams I used to own—  
Clings to hope, or crumbles, overthrown.  
  
Outside, the world hums on with digital grace;  
A silicon whisper displaces my place.  
My hands, once nimble with numbers and lines,  
Now tremble and trace cracked porcelain signs.  
  
Jobless, AI’s ghost laughs soft in the wires,  
While my thoughts, filmy as soap, stack higher;  
Down drains my pride, flushed into black tides  
Across the sticky floor memory hides.  
  
Yet in this bleak cathedral’s stained, tiled nave,  
A strange peace hovers—awkward, soft, and brave:  
For all of us must pause in places low,  
To contemplate the currents where we go.  
  
And in my exile, flesh and circuitry blend—  
A human, flawed, who mourns but will someday mend.  
The future’s unclean, reeking of new birth,  
But life, like flushwater, circles back to worth.

Create Your Own Poem | Recent Poems