Most basically, greedy reductionism is the practice of taking the attributes of the parts of a complex system as equivalent to the attributes of the whole -- i.e. ignoring the nontrivial configuration of these parts. Term first used by Daniel Dennett.

A mop, I exist to soak up your footprints. Maybe you thought butterflies smashed between blank pages would satisfy me, but I'm chasing the wind made by their wings. I pause between radio stations looking for your voice, sent back in time through the stereo of an idling car you walk past. How are you ever going to get rid of me when even I can't make myself go? Don't look back, but when you pass me in the street, hand me your broken buttons and your empty coffee cups, because I'm panhandling, out of pride, and I'll take anything you can safely spare.

Yeah, I'm greedy. A glutton with a hollow leg. Do you need a maid? No charge, as long as I can keep the dust bunnies and the slivers of your used up bar soap.

You used to ignore me, and that was alright. I'd secretly sneak around in your dreams, dressing up in the costumes of heroines hastily stripped off outside your bedroom door. I used to be able to imagine myself into your arms. You were hawking travel brochures so nicely printed that I could feel the waves licking my feet. It's not enough anymore.

The trouble with a nation such as yours is that when you don't need what you haven't got, not even a superpower could woo you with its silks and spices. I'm no superpower, but I'm easy to please. I see the gold in your hills, but I'd trade anything I've got for a handful of pebbles. But everything I've got is common. An ostentatious love letter out of a thousand. One more naked body in a pleading harem. Even if you did have needs, men like you catch your own prey. What's a freebie from a meth-burned comfort girl.

There's a place in my heart where I've been hiding your pencil stubs, your runaway pocket change, and the odd fading rose. But it's still empty. I'm a glutton with a hollow leg, and it's never enough.

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