Pens of Praise

The factories no longer exhale fumes but fillers Clanging steel is traded for selfie stick. Whip is gone but the gaze remains. Wage is still dingy and stale. Accepted without questions. When the labour was visible, we called it brutal. Children with soot in lungs, blistered hands, bodies bent before they grew. Now the soot is scrubbed, hands are clean but the bending of spine begins much earlier. They are raised in pens of praise. milked for their innocence like diary calves hooked to the teat of validation. They don't toil but trend. Sweat has replaced sponsored smiles. The mines are gone but digging continues. Rafflesia has been renamed Rose and the stench smells like aspiration bottled, branded and sold as hope. Law shields the body not the soul, factories can be condemned not studios. A worker is trudged; a creator performs. And performance is the wound taught to pirouette. Fists won't rise nor will ink spill, as the table is set too neatly and the chairs are too soft. Even after a century money still has grandfather rights. Sitting at the head of every table, blessing the hunger and deciding who eats.