The Man in the Loop

He wakes before the sun can rise,
beneath the weight of gloomy skies.
A clockwork man in hollowed skin,
a life that turns, yet won’t begin.

The same old streets, the same old train,
a cycle carved in steel and chain.
The echoes of his heavy breath,
reminds him life is slow in death.

His hands—they build what isn’t his,
his time—consumed, dismissed, lost.
A check arrives, just short of his dreams,
just enough to mend the seams.

The walls of glass reflect his face,
a ghost of his youth, a man displaced.
The passions that burned within his chest
now cinders, smothered, laid to rest.

No space to run, no time to stay,
no moment left to drift away.
A slave, not bound by lock and key,
but shackled to necessity.

The world moves on, the years dissolve,
his name forgotten, his soul absolved.
And as he walks that road once more,
he wonders what he’s living for....

Yet still, the sun must rise again,
and so he joins the march of a billion men.