Box me up with the relics, label me, no longer used. But know, I kept things running when the tools were crude. I operate as analog in a world that’s gone online, I worked and I succeeded, and dutifully did my time. There’s a rolodex by the window, names faded into dust, It sticks like all those handshakes built on loyalty and trust. I memorized the numbers, didn’t need a search bar glow, now the world swipes past the things that I used to know. Dictaphones spools swallowed our voices whole The tape caught confessions that were always available I knew, the tape would run out. It was never a gamble The silencing of my career was always inevitable. Contacts asleep under yellowed tabs, rolodex doesn’t spin anymore, People have left or retired, they’re lost, forgotten evermore. The projector hums in memory, warm bulb, uneven light, we’d gather in the conference room and make the future bright. Now it’s all high definition, silent, sharp, cold and clean, no one waits for things to build, no one’s waiting in the beam. Remembering the slow ache, before the picture arrived. Dust pre-formed our ideas, floating through a borrowed light Dictaphones spools swallowed our voices whole The tape caught confessions that were always available I knew, the tape would run out. It was never a gamble The silencing of my career was always inevitable. I’m a punch clock on the back wall, still ticking, still on time, counting out the hours that towed the company line. I’m carbon copy paper, every effort leaves a trace, Peels the layers away but leaving slight impressions in its place. Dictaphones spools swallowed our voices whole The tape caught confessions that were always available I knew, the tape would run out. It was never a gamble The silencing of my career was always inevitable.
