"Do You Know?" by Carmen Barefield by VOICEMAIL POEMS published on 2026-01-27T22:33:12Z The human brain generates 20 watts of electricity. Or so the AI Overview tells me unprompted when I search how much a thought costs me, how much energy each flex of my fingers are required to press each of these keys. Do you know how much energy is wasted by the AI Overview being generated? I ask. It hesitates. I find an answer under the links to buy a novelty brain mug. Oh, just 6 bottles of water to cool the servers every ten seconds. And they promise to be eco-friendly. Did you know almost all their water filters are falsely advertising their efficiency? Yeah, there is no reliable way to remove all the shit to make it drinkable again. All the bacteria, the chemicals, the forever plastics dancing in your cells. Dear search, how much energy does plastic consume inside the body? The AI has no answer because we have no answer. Like a game of snake an ouroboros on an old Nokia. Those invincible bricks, where did they go? Other than swallowed up deep inside, of course. Bit by micro-bit. Did you know the human brain with a thought could light a small bulb? 40 Joules in 2 seconds. AI Overview pick-pocketed that info for me because it doesn’t actually think anything or know that the human brain is so efficient in ways we don’t even understand. Or maybe I’m too harsh. After all, we still don’t know what an appendix does, but we still carve it out when we need to. We know we can live without it if removed before it explodes on a random Tuesday. Well, depending on if your shit boss doesn’t hesitate to call the ambulance. And did you know that on the stretcher to the ER as you clutch your side and bile of bits and brick scratch your throat, you might use your last moments the 2 second spark of the brain electrified and dancing to ask the question through sweat and pain: “Do you know how much this will cost me?” ————————————– Carmen Barefield called us from Salem, MA. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems Genre Spoken Word
