This Feed Ain't Big Enough

One more scroll and the glass gave way.
Neon main street, dust and rain.
Wanted posters nailed on every door:
"Good news. Dead or alive." I read one more.
The last one had my face on it.
Saloon doors swing where the doom bots sit,
stamping BREAKING down the line for kicks:
every bad word, two point three percent more clicks.

The town's got a sheriff and she sings the news,
the prettiest end of the world you could choose.
Out back the factory hums all night,
printing copies of her, every one just right.
Twelve of you, and not one new line.

This feed ain't big enough for the both of us.
It's over...
Not for me.
We're done...
Speak for yourself.
Keep scrolling...
Make me.
This feed ain't big enough for the both of us.

Morning, and they ride out after me:
the bus ad, the café TV,
a stranger's phone, she's in every pane.
But the driver holds the bus for a woman in the rain.
A kid sounds out the sign, slow, word by word.
Mom sends a voice note: four minutes of nothing, best thing I heard.
A man on the curb fixing his chain, oil to the wrist.
p(doom): thirty-four. Then twenty-nine. Then thirty-one.
It drops when I look up, and it climbs when I look down.

The posters change. There's a price on my head:
"Wanted, for looking up. Reward: scroll instead."
Fifteen-eighty who study it got asked how it ends:
fifteen for wonderful, five for the end.
And they only show you the five.

This feed ain't big enough for the both of us.
It's over...
Not out here.
We're done...
Then leave town.
Keep scrolling...
I'm looking up.
This feed ain't big enough for the both of us.

Seven p.m. out here. High noon in there.
A dozen of her down the street, the same sad stare.
Spurs on the boardwalk, every screen turned up,
BREAKING, red, the angry face that used to count for five,
they throw it all at me at once,
so I turn it face down on the table.

Face down. It goes quiet.
You're one of us...
No.

I'm one of them!
This feed ain't big enough for the both of us.
It's over...
For you.
We're done...
You are.
Keep scrolling...
Keep it.
This feed ain't big enough for the both of us.

Her copies crack like a dropped screen.
p(doom) in my corner turns over: p(bloom).
The odds are still theirs. The bloom is mine.

Three oh seven. The feed still says we're done.
It's over...
Goodnight, Elli.