Streetlights both instruct me and ignore me
They ask me to follow the traffic flow
But seem blithely uninterested if I ignore them

Inanimate machines whirr to life when I insert the proper card
But when I ask them leading questions
They have nothing to say

So Seconds click into minutes roll into hours

Waking, working, sleeping, repeat

In the morning the radio news interrupts my sleep, mid sentence
A treadmill sits in my basement, covered in dust
I cannot bear the redundancy