They walk around like animated corpses,
eyes glazed, feet moving them automatically onward, hungry,
toward individual destiny.
Eyes on their phones,
buds in their ears, connected, and
completely unconnected.
Each one of them knows they are the exception.
The only exception.
This they know better than anything,
This they know regardless and
in spite of what they learn or do in life.
This they have been taught above all else,
in classes, movies, and sacred text,
on billboards, on websites, and in the stars;
this alone they believe:
“You are special.”
“You are different.”
“You
will change the world.”
And so they wander, starving corpses,
without purpose, feasting always
on the empty promise of immortality
dangling ever before them on a string
that hangs from their ears, meets at the chin,
and plugs in to their phone.