HORROR Poem: Grind Grind, by Anna Maeve

Grind—grind—marching to the same refrain,
The wheel will never stop.

Hands on belts, hands on screens,
Eyes on numbers, dim-lit dreams.
Grind—grind—back and forth, the endless chain,
The grind devours all.

Factory floors and checkout lanes,
Endless emails, subway trains.
Push the buttons, pull the levers,
Sweat-soaked collars, broken feathers.
Grind—grind—churning through the days in vain,
The clock is always hungry.

Bosses laugh in glass-front towers,
Counting up the stolen hours.
Bills to pay, no time to eat,
Debt’s a shackle round your feet.
Grind—grind—stuck beneath the grinding strain,
Chains you’ll never see.

Dream of rest, dream of ease,
Dream of days you’d dare to seize.
But dreams dissolve like morning dew—
The grind has always ground down you.

Grind—grind—trapped within the system’s chain,
No mercy for the poor.