TATAMF - T8_ The Future That Ate the Algorithm A

The Algorithm That Ate My Future
T8 – The Future That Ate the Algorithm (Coda)

I’m speaking from a future you can’t see yet,
built from every tiny choice you haven’t made.
Not from the big oaths shouted in January,
but from the nights you almost changed… and stayed.

All those taps you thought were nothing much,
the “just one scroll,” the “five more minutes,”
they lined up like teeth in a gear you couldn’t see,
turning quietly beneath your limits.

There was a version of us that never woke,
who let the feed decide which nerves to stroke.
Spent decades in loops they never named,
never noticed how their future got framed.

There was a version who ran the audit, too,
closed some doors, chose a tighter view.
Who treated every click like a small, sharp vote,
and rewrote the story the system wrote.

I’m one of those timelines walking around,
wearing the compound interest of what you allowed.
You think it’s later, abstract, far—
I’m just the sum of what you gave your hours to, so far.

Every “not tonight” to the work that scared you,
every “I’ll start when I feel brand new,”
every “I deserve this” over and over again
taught the world and the code what you were willing to spend.

You said the algorithm ate your future, and it tried,
but futures eat algorithms, too, given enough time.
The long arc of what you kept on repeat
turned the jaws that bit you into bones at your feet.

Tiny taps and tilted days,
that’s how I was carved from your old ways.
You thought it was random, noise in the glass—
I’m the future that ate the algorithm at last.

Not with one big fight or a perfect plan,
but by starving its teeth and feeding the human.
Loops on loops, year on year,
till its tricks grew small and your will grew clear.

Don’t mistake me for a sainted win,
I still feel the pull under my skin.
Some nights the scroll-song hums in my hands,
old reflexes twitch like waking demands.

I’ve lost hours here and there to the glow,
stared at nothing just to not feel low.
Agency isn’t a trophy you get and keep,
it’s a muscle that shakes, then grows in the deep.

I built rituals, broke them, built them again,
forgot my rules and remembered them in pain.
The feed adapted, I adapted too,
a long, clumsy dance for a slightly clearer view.

You wanted a clean cut, a single day,
where the algorithm just went away.
But it stayed, and so did I,
two predators sharing the same sky.

Young me: “It’s just my phone, it’s not that deep…”
Older me: “Count the nights you traded for sleep.”

Young me: “I’ll quit when life gets less intense.”
Older me: “Or build a life by guarding the fence.”

Young me: “The algorithm knows me better than I do…”
Older me: “It knows your patterns, not what you could grow into.”

Two lines of code in the same old script,
one resigned to the loop, one quietly equipped.

Tiny taps and tilted days,
that’s how I was carved from your old ways.
You thought it was random, noise in the glass—
I’m the future that ate the algorithm at last.

If you’re listening now with the screen in your hand,
you’re still writing which version of me will stand.
I can be small, or I can be free—
but either way, I’m coming from what you feed.

The loop doesn’t close in a perfect line—
it spirals through your habits, into mine.