Beneath the towers of glass, concrete, and steel,
We spend our hours spinning on a hamster’s wheel.
Mindless consumption grows unchecked,
Forms a gilded cage we’re powerless to slow.

The oceans gasp plastic, the skies cough in gray,
Yet the machines grind on, churning profit each day.
Bees scrawl elegies for flowers in decline,
While corporations execute greed’s destructive design.

The Earth’s fever rises, her pulse a red line,
But machines demand we keep digging the mine.
We’re cogs in a system, sacrificed as a pawn,
Chasing the dollar while the last forests are sawn.

Madness is knowing the cliff draws near,
Yet strapping in tighter, reciting “my career.”
We’re fossils in business suits, chanting Growth! as we fall,
While the planet, a patient, flatlines next to us all.

The sirens are screaming—yet no one unplugs,
As we march to the dirge of profit-blind slugs.
Our children will inherit the ash of our crime,
As the gears, ever hungry, keep chewing through time.

Scientists’ endless warnings are screamed in vain,
As we look for distractions to numb the pain.
Will we awaken, or simply rust—
Entombed by our own gears and buried in dust?