Nine Ninety-Nine

Every month the same amount,

nine dollars and ninety-nine cents,

pulled from my account

like I'd signed a covenant,

a contract with my own forgetting.

I opened the app once,

once, and that's it—

I kept paying month after month,

eleven months, eleven times,

the same charge, the same crime

against my own attention,

against my own mind,

the meditation app's intention

to fix me, to help me find

peace, but I never even used it,

never let the honey voice

guide me, never refused it,

just let it keep bleeding out, choice

after choice to ignore,

until the payment failed

and I realized what was in store—

that I'd been bled dry, failed

to cancel what I'd never wanted,

and now I'm canceling it,

feeling like I've recanted

something, feeling the grit

of control, but the money's gone,

already spent on calm

I never bought, already drawn

from my life like balm

I never asked for, like peace

I never wanted in the first place.