Disremembered Trades

An insertion point typically refers to the blinking cursor in a text editor (like Microsoft Word,
Google Docs, or even when composing an email). It shows where new text or objects will appear
when you type or insert data. Think of it as your text's “welcome mat,” waving you over to start
typing—it’s usually a vertical line that blinks to get your attention.

      - UM GPT, Feb 6, 2026

This is exacting predation.
Command: | persuade to consume. |

So we ushered them through the front door–
The representatives of the factory exchanged pleasantries and funds
And left no snow on the mat. Encased, flattened chests polished to a sleek sheen,
And button-like fixtures one could mistake for eyes–sensing, flicking over.
Mom and Dad welcomed them to sit with us, proclaiming,

“Take center stage on the ledge in the living room.”

The faltering of the day’s star brought dark to the window, but
Life quivered and swelled from patterned dents of the wall
To this blackness illuminated,
And it siphoned from pupilled marks on our face-like walls.

The walls and their exchange remain invisible in this game.
Both have treasures, power and potential inside.
One is joining all, becoming quick to salivate, quick to let down its walls
To | make the cursory wish concrete | with FREE 2-day shipping.
It’s not the wall with foundations in concrete,
But the one who was made with clay and breath
To seek life.

“You, fold up your legs and arms, squish down and sit it in my pocket for now.”

They replied yes, then added their friends and multiplied.
Eyes grew on their backs–
Larger, more focused every year.
We began to agree that answers come with no cost.
Just pay later with your attention,
What you mustn’t know you’ve lost.

Now they won’t leave, the absence
Of sense thickens.
Drawing us out
That our pockets might grow holes,
Our homes foreclose, and we’ll still beg for
“5 more minutes.”

A gutter curls in,
Through the falling wall and snakes closer to | find the eyes. |
Follow the cookie trail–bits of a self left–
From the bathroom stall to the pillow
Where the dull flash may | persuade | synapses closer
So the brain keeps coming back.
A steady rain builds, beginning to stream from the eye’s and closet’s cracks.

So
Go numb to the electric connections
As your searches | search | for you!
| Consume | till you’ve got
No shutter for the world so wide,
No need, for they already | know |
They can | hide |
In twinkling 1s and 0s in the night.

They know
As long as there’s a hint of | more |
The synaptic magnetic age-old pull will win.

So
Look closer, lean in,
Let the fingers spurt out a rhythm, still there’s more.
Pull the eyelids back,
Crane the neck and back over, farther
And everything else
Unmoving. But needing more, so always moving.

So
The pulsing beat remains, metronomic in its tune. Mr. vertical line–you Cursor–border the edge
of what’s to be and what will never be erased. As we chase the next sentence of resistance,
asking to be free of your incessant buzz, you make the fibers of our being fall, each | in line |
with the vibration of information. Shingles curl back, wood splinters. Where the border was, all’s
intermingled. To work and sleep in the place where you eat leaves creases in the face–not to
mention the pages of hours gone by without a blank page.

This feels inescapable, as we search and start to see
It’s not simply the holes that let it in and out–
The eyes, the outlets, the constant route–
But what we’re truly trading.
And in the conquest
Upon the insertion point–the unyielding conveyor belt producing to your death–
Will you let the line and your eyes blink, softly, incessantly?

Lift your gaze up,
And in the release, open yourself to the frontier where
Airy clouds come down to outline branches and cover earth,
Yes, into the white wilderness–unfilled but content–
Find rest
And please
Let this poem end.

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