HOW FAST THEY SELL

Four a minute. Each one a promise to finally practise this time.

Nine a minute, quietly agreeing to eat one sock each per year.

Somewhere a family just signed for the keys. Twenty times a minute.

Thirty-three a minute. Most will know exactly four chords forever.

Another world purchased, block by block. Forty-five a minute, still unopened.

One a second, sold on the promise of a straighter back nobody keeps.

Living rooms keep getting bigger screens. Eighty-one a minute.

Tiny, easy to lose, impossible to stop buying. A hundred and fourteen a minute.

The world reaches for relief twice a second. It rarely reads the label.

Three a second — and yes, it is almost the exact same shade you own.

Four a second, and somehow the milk always runs out first.

Five a second, bought with every intention of reaching chapter two.

Six a second, waiting in cupboards for a rainy day that never comes.

Seven a second. The one you own is already, quietly, last year's model.

Nine a second. The straw stabbing sound is basically a global heartbeat.

Eleven a second, each destined to be replaced far too late.

Fourteen a second. Most will out-walk their owner's good intentions.

Nineteen a second, half of them the exact same plain white.

Twenty-six a second, fueling meetings that could have been an email.

Thirty-four a second, boxed and speeding somewhere. None ordered a salad.

Seventy-five a second. Faster than you can decide if you regret the last one.

A hundred and twenty a second. The planet is quietly keeping the receipt.

A hundred and seventy-five a second. One tap, and a warehouse somewhere flinches.

Two hundred and twenty-two a second. No longer objects moving — a current.