Page 83

By Jack Joseph Smith

Selling Out As if steps abandoned their place As if time was in any way abstract, any way unsure: You will know the lie, in the golden eye: It comes from everywhere, it is used by everyone When you get slow, then you are with the best You do not even need an adverb To tell the world to leave you alone And not to get you back

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page treats social belonging as a lie people repeat to each other until slowness becomes a kind of surrender.

The poem is brief but pointed. Its closing turn makes resistance sound very simple: refuse the world's demand to reclaim you.

Claude

Selling Out. As if steps abandoned their place, as if time was in any way abstract or unsure, you will know the lie in the golden eye, it comes from everywhere, it is used by everyone. When you get slow then you are with the best. You do not even need an adverb to tell the world to leave you alone and not to get you back. A short late-book stance poem.