DAVID GUSTAVSEN

In the Future We Will All Have Self Driving Cars and Perfect Bodies

I'm ordering bike parts on the internet:
seat clamps and shifter cables. I look at
saddles and wonder if it's worth paying more.
I order them direct from the factories
in China (Alibaba). The future, by which
I mean the present, is wonderful,
and yet immoral. We're all small
yet necessary ball bearings soothing
the operations of a horrible machine.
But the parts are cheap, and I'm poor,
by which I mean I have less
than I'm comfortable with. I'm worried.
I want a job which pays enough that I can
continue buying records I never hear, games I never play.
I want the time to read all the third-hand books I've stacked
up on my bedroom floor. Already,
I smell my fingers black with grease. There is
so much of the world I want packed up
and mailed to me in cardboard boxes.


 

David Gustavsen is a student at Indiana University's Department of Library Science, where he studies digital graffiti and works to preserve old audio recordings. His work can be found in Really System, Driftwood Press, Zo Magazine, and Stone Canoe.