Clean Sentences

at 2 a.m. the cursor blinks like a bad habit.
coffee tastes like burnt apologies.
he tries to write something honest
but he’s bargaining with a machine.
it gives him clean sentences,
shiny as a new knife.
but nobody ever bled from clean.
he feeds it his mess,
half remembered afternoons,
cheap triumphs,
the jobs that ate his years.
it rearranges the words
like a bartender who never drinks.
sometimes it hits a line
that coughs up a little truth.
most times it just sounds
like it wants to be liked.
so he keeps going.
taking what works.
throws the rest in the bin
with the other easy things.
because the hard part isn’t typing.
the hard part is standing there
when the page looks back
and asks if he meant it.