alutron girl

just another alutron girl
hidden away in housewife, usa
i am a cog in this machine
where entropy is happening
and technology makes me
obsolete.

wreckless drivers
in monstrous vehicles
make speed limits
limitless.
i go as fast as them
but it's not fast enough.
i stare at trunks and plates
and wonder how this all fits
in the machine.

the chaos begins.

pills to keep me in my place
pills to keep the blues away
pills to get me through the day
pills to end a long hard day.

i'll try my best
to do my part
to keep the wheels turning
until i say it's over
until i say i'm through;

until then i'll be
just another alutron girl
calibrating
participating
wondering
when.

Reviews

[m.s.early]

is the narrator's prescriptions allowing her to think clearer than she would without them or are they protecting her from reality? are the prescriptions digging deep enough to help her find out why she can't go fast enough or why she needs to? isn't this a medical dilemma. it also makes me question the motives of those who distribute them. are we prescribed because the doctor understands or because his pharmaceutical representative advises him too? is the narrator sick or is she just frustrated and lonely? are there holistic and spiritual means that may serve to brighten her perception?

it also raises the too familiar questions: is this all there is? what is my purpose?

and in the end of the poem she resolves. keep plugging along until the answer is revealed. which all we can really do while making the best of our present.

[Angi]

Mockingbird, I read this piece with 'Bad a*s women' in my head. I didn't see that here when I first read this poem. Then, I saw her emerge in bits and pieces. She is tired and she feels like a robot, she takes the pills to create results she needs to go on and on each day. The lines about her choosing when enough is enough made it bad a*s for me. I didn't get a sense of death from those lines, I got a sense of chains being cut loose. I like that she is (re)calibrating. Congrats on the gold and thank you for submitting. Angi~

[Wondering Mind]

this is a depressing depiction of how it can be/ is for some... A sad story of many in this so-called "modern" society.
Again, you end it with great effect, and a magnet of a starting stanza.

[Kiari Sabon]

very good piece kinda sad 2 think of but keep up the work

[fireblossom]

I found this to be clever and written well. I wonder about you.

[L. Edward Neale]

Great imagery. Captures the monotony and despair of modern domesticity in the wealthy industrial west very succinctly. Close to the bone. Sounds like this character needs to go smash up some appliances, go to a riot girl gig to pick up a lesbian lover to keep her company while her robot husband is at the company pushing buttons in his cubicle. A certain amount of alienation from one's environment is necessary for sanity. That and the right kind of non perscription naturally grown mind altering substances. Synthetics are always a bad call. Like handing your mind to the dominant patriarchial paradigm on a platter.

[An owl on the moon]

The enfleshed mechanics of an alutron mind and heart... moving across space and time and wondering... How you paint this image with a distinctive, vivid color.

[Zeitgeist Manifesto]

This poem made me think about how the grass is not always greener. I envisioned the family woman who is seen as having the perfect life where everything has fallen into place and I was given just a minimum dosage of the stress she endures everyday. I honestly couldn't handle it. That driving scene had me feeling so frantic as every second counted. I didn't even know where I had to be and I could hear the clock just over my shoulder ticking and bearing down on me. It was frustrating to have the experience of running on fumes, but you have given me imagery that will be forever carved into my brain. I have found an understanding in your words...

[Brandon]

Calibrating. Participating. Pills for the cogs in Housewife, USA and cogs for the pills. Everything about this poem is half-asleep with the finger on the trigger. I say that to mean that the narrator seems so disenchanted but the words have bite to them. It's comatose with a seething chaser. It's really brilliant. I especially love how it trails off at the end with her "wondering...when...". It's like she's going to explode and it's only a matter of time. It's actually really very sad. Most everybody in some way or another is wandering furniture stores and ice cream parlors with a digital countdown in their chest. Loose cannons. You displayed that perfectly. ("...and technology makes me obsolete" wins most depressing line here.)