Passive Income

The clerk has a look that is patient and thin,

as the line at the register starts to begin.

My card is a failure, a plastic mistake,

and I’m feeling the heat of a slow, steady ache.

I pull up the app and I see where it went,

twelve dollars for silence, for money I spent

on a voice that promised to help me to sleep,

while the hole in my budget is wide and it's deep.

I haven't been calm since the middle of May,

but the software is taking its cut anyway.

There’s a blue little dot on the glass of the screen,

pulsing like blood for a ghost in the machine.