You find new muscles everyday. 
Emotions stay dead in place. 
We’re productive yet recyclable. 
We are the workers.

You can’t remember your holidays. 
The clouds are steel grey.

The bus is late, but you don’t care. 
We’re productive yet recyclable.

Internet banking with four codes,

You still have a smashed phone screen. Inbox full. 
Change your password and dreams please.

We are the workers.

I open up my wallet, and finger too few notes,

reckon playschool fees and another pair of cheap trainers; 
Wish I hadn’t booked that holiday.

We’re productive yet recyclable.

Endless eight hours of my soul

stabbing itself with a computer.

My neck aches. Are my shoes too small? 
We are the workers.

My jellied brain throbs

From one-player mind games of precarity. 
We’re productive yet recyclable.

We are all the workers.

Alan McGuire is a former mental health nurse from Swindon. He currently lives in Madrid teaching English. He is active in both Spanish and British politics.