But My Chains

But my loyalty
       points—my purchasing
       power. Nothing.

But my economies
       of scale, my digital
       compression :: companionship.

But my all-
       you-can-eat
       loneliness, my rail-
       rapid integration.

But my market-
       driven love
       handles, my accrued
       vacancy.

But my taste
       in artisanal
       bootstrapism.

But my choice
       of protein, of pit-baked
       avarice, of indulgences.
       [CHURCH collects
       as does CAESAR.]

But my supply
       side floods, my O’
       so buoyant home
       staked and sandbagged
       on striving’s pebbly shore.

But my internal
       combustion, my miles,
       my carcinogenic
       Kingdom Come. Nothing.

But my fast casual
       history—every morsel
       wrapped in a bank
       notes’ blood-sketched
       hagiography.

But my user-friendly
       righteousness, my Gross
       Domestic Amnesia.
       In place of the old wants …
       we finds new wants.

But my comfort,
       my tariffed aches,
       my engorged
       prerogatives. I made
       this money,
       you didn’t. Right, Ted?

But my ability to believe
       that what I’ve paid for,
       I have made. Nothing

       to lose, except ownership
       of this wallet-sized tomb—
       these six crisp walls.