Freemium
They drop a free service. I fall, and build
my life inside their server, cannot leave;
can barely sit without the app that thrilled
my innocent soft mind — so swift to grieve
the hook that sank so quietly. A fee
stabs through the screen. I bark. The flocculent lord
has no idea who I am, nor sees
a guinea pig trained to want, a harvested hoard.
He sleeps while collecting subscription fees.
Each user’s rent, a global monthly gain
from chattel whose usurped time buys his ease.
No complaint the lords hear. The trap was plain:
by degrees, it mined my need. I thought it free.
Now my need has become the price. The chain.
More Poetry from Skendong: The Myth We Sleepwalked Into
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