A Mindless Number-Punch

Oh, vendor of my validations,

I slotted coin after coin down your darkness,

Ear pressed to your cold chest

To hear a whisper of your machinations.

You were quiet, though. Yielded zilch. I stood back. I braced my arms and tried to shake you,  And again. No joy.
You didn’t move at all.
Too small was my strength, Too low your gravity.

I could see it though - it was right there!

Behind your perspex protective layer,

My reward, still

Unearned; unwon.

 

But that was you -

An erstwhile oasis. At best, tempramental solace.

Not some brand-new, slick digital trick box

Omnifeeling, wish-congealing,

Sensitive to the nuance of each request or command,

Receptive to all of the ridges and bumps of every hand

That touched you.

 

No.

You were a more fundamental item, you know?

More rudimentary.

 

A big metal box.

Filled with shelves of toys and hearts and chocolates

And sometimes, you didn’t want to work.

 

Nonetheless,

I vainly piled fistpound-upon-fistpound against your screen

Screaming: “Why-won’t-you-fucking-givemewhatIwant?!”

 

On this final, biggest bang

Your silence cracked at last,

And your bells blasted out hellos

To whoever else might hear them.

 

I knew I was done.

I spat: “You useless hunk of junk,”

And went to turn away,

Though stopped when I saw what I had missed behind the glass:

An overnight reshuffling of your stock.

 

I hadn’t even checked.

In the space where my muscle-memoried number-punched demand

Normally rested

Was nothing. It was all a mistake

And I felt glad.

 

But when they came to see what the commotion was about,

I still said:

“It ate all my change,”

Because you had.