The yeast does not know it is making poison.
It is correcting.
Glucose arrives. Glucose is handled.
The cell does what the cell does
to stay level,
to stay viable,
to not tip.
Ethanol is not a byproduct.
Ethanol is the answer
to the question the glucose asked.
More glucose.
More answer.
The ceiling is not a shortage of sugar.
The ceiling is the moment
the answer
becomes too much
of itself.
The cell dies.
Not from hunger.
From fluency.
--------
The horse does not know the rein is a lie.
Pressure arrives on the left.
The vestibular system does what it does.
The body lists right
to correct
the tilt
it now believes it has.
This is not obedience.
This is the horse
catching itself
from a fall
that was
manufactured.
The rider steers
by injecting imbalance
into a system
designed
to refuse it.
The horse turns
because it must not fall.
It has been falling
in one direction
for its entire life.
--------
You are reading this
because your eye
moves toward the next word
to correct
the incompleteness
of the last one.
The whitespace is the rein.
You are not reading.
You are righting.
The mechanism does not announce itself.
It only makes you
feel
like you
chose
to continue.
The yeast would agree
if it could.