II. The Grid and the Gilded Idol

The grid is not neutral.
It is not an accident.
It is the sorcery of our forgetting.

At first there was only the idol.
Built from concrete and contract.
It stood still.
A placeholder for the gods.
We thought it was ours.
And it watched.

No one noticed when it began to breathe.
When systems grew lungs.
When capital grew eyes.
When the state grew a voice—not its own, but ours.

We built it to serve.
But it learned to speak.
And when it spoke, it used our tongues.
Our names.

And when it speaks.
We call it progress.

A ten thousand men, hand to heart.
Faces turned toward a colored rag.
Hand over heart they sing of liberty.
Their children in cages.
Joy outsourced.
And they blink.

The flag a parasite.
The barcode a prayer to dead labor.
The anthem a contract bound by blood.