Do Not Look, Switch
The stamp stayed on my forehead like a second skin.
I wanted to call it freedom, but it was only a pause. A small gap where the mind forgot to bite.
The only freedom is freedom from the mind, and maybe that is the cruelest joke of all. We chase it with the same machinery that creates the cage. We are nature’s machines, tuned by genes and fear, trained by hunger and noise, built by the organism to keep moving.
So maybe the clean truth is this: for current humans, full freedom might not be possible. Not as a permanent state. Not as an achievement you can own.
But maybe, just maybe, the organism is learning through us. Maybe we are the rough draft. Maybe the next form will hold that freedom more easily. Not as an individual victory, but as a shared evolution, a mind that can watch itself without turning into a weapon.
I pressed my palm to the warm receipt walls and felt the whole place breathing.
Suffering is real. That is why joy is real too.
And if there is any meaning left that is not a trick, it is to widen the gap by one breath, one honest choice, one less act of harm.
Not to escape the organism.
To help it grow.
I woke up inside a receipt, warm paper like skin
My childhood on the line items, priced in minutes again
Cashier stamped my name so hard, it fell out of my head
I tried to hold my own life, but the ink just bled
Do not look, switch
Do not look, switch
Teeth turn to coins, love is the glitch
Do not look, switch
A dog walked by with my face pinned on like a badge
Barked, return policy is love, then spent me in a flash
My mouth became a doorway, clocks cooked secrets in a pan
I grabbed a tiny moon for salt, and changed into someone’s hands
Do not look, switch
Do not look, switch
Gunshots of confetti, fate doing tricks
Do not look, switch
Sideways lift, emotion floors, I pressed peace got pressure
At my own funeral still breathing, strangers wearing my weather
Then a stamp hit my forehead, and every heartbeat became mine
One organism, one strange body, one crooked line
The story bowed, asked me to write
So I wrote it with the running room at night
Do not look, switch
Do not look, switch
I woke up inside a receipt.
The paper was warm, like skin.
Every item was my childhood, priced in minutes.
Then the cashier stamped my name and I forgot it.
A dog walked past, wearing my face like a badge.
It barked in perfect English, “Return policy is love.”
I tried to laugh, but my teeth were coins.
The dog spent them, and my mouth became a door.
Behind the door was a kitchen made of clocks.
The clocks fried eggs that screamed my secrets.
I reached for salt and grabbed a tiny moon.
The moon dissolved and my hands turned into gloves for someone else.
A chubby woman in a ship hat floated in the ceiling light.
Her dress flowed like a parade, glittering with storm dust.
She vogued so hard the walls started clapping.
Then the clapping became gunshots made of confetti.
Outside, the street was a hospital for broken mirrors.
Nurses stitched reflections back onto strangers.
A child with headphones danced in the waiting room.
Every time he smiled, a new law was invented.
A black horse charged through ocean waves in the corridor.
Its harness was red, bright like a warning that wants to be kissed.
The rider wore black and a long red cloak, face hidden.
When the horse neighed, my phone rang in ancient Latin.
The call was from my future, speaking in my mother’s voice.
It said, “Do not look, switch.”
I asked, “Switch what?” and it answered, “Your species.”
Then my shadow stood up and walked away with my body.
I followed my body into a lift that only went sideways.
Floor buttons were labeled with emotions, not numbers.
I pressed “peace” and got “pressure” instead.
The lift opened and I stepped into my own funeral, still alive.
Everyone there wore my memories like coats.
They complimented each other, “Nice regret, so vintage.”
A priest read from a menu, not a book.
The final dish was my last thought, served cold, and I tasted it early.
I tried to leave, but the exit was a mouth chewing slowly.
It whispered, “If you run, you will arrive.”
I stopped running and the room started running for me.
Then the room tripped, and the universe apologized in handwriting.
A tiny stamp fell from the ceiling, inked with “ONE ORGANISM.”
It hit my forehead and I heard everyone’s heartbeat at once.
I understood the trick, the whole cruel joke of separateness.
And right then, the story stood up, bowed, and asked me to write it instead.
