[Intro]
Debrief. The summit. Where do I even file this one.
Chronological. Professional. Try.
[Verse 1]
Firm's a platinum sponsor, so I'm front row center, best seat money bought
Regional AI and risk, and the keynote is — of course it is. Of course.
His book's on half the laps in here. HIS book. The room is chamber royalty:
the bank, the tech council, two mayors, everyone my rainmakers call sir
And he walked out with no slides for the first ten minutes and just TALKED
And I watched four hundred people lean the way a gym floor leans. It scales. Noted. It SCALES.
[Verse 2]
And front row buys you angles, so I worked the room in glances:
The college crowd's stage left — and there's the one who briefed nobody, the watchful one, watching
And back of house, running EVERYTHING, headset and heels — the incumbent
Half this room came because HER name was on the invite. I did the math twice.
And then — check-in table, staff lanyard, handing programs to a MAYOR —
the kid. MY kid. The file. The good-question girl. INSIDE. Working. Useful. In.
[Chorus]
Front row — closest seat in the building
And somehow everyone I've studied is deeper in than me
I bought the proximity. They were ISSUED it.
Sponsors sit close. Family stands backstage.
And the lanyard costs eleven cents, and mine's platinum, and hers is IN
Front row
(...noted. re-mapping.)
[Verse 3]
And the lore moved through that room like weather, I collected it in passing:
Someone exotic from his past waved five fingers, got the warm-and-closed, same as everyone
And a director type behind me told her seatmate, low: "you know a woman with her OWN JET
once offered to put him through flight school just to keep him close — didn't take."
Didn't. Take. The market's already run my play, ladies and gentlemen
At a nine-figure price point. And the market LOST. (...appendix. Humming. Louder now.)
[Verse 4]
Keynote ends. Standing room applauds a man who'd rather rack a bar.
Book line forms — forty deep — and he signs like he says morning: complete, warm, each one whole
And I'm still seated, front row, best seat in the house, doing the math I hate:
Every person in my file got in through a door I've never used
And I don't know the door's NAME
But tonight there's a reception, and the incumbent runs the list
And I'm on it — the firm bought that too —
so. Reception. Tonight. We proceed.
(...noted. proceeding. Into what, counselor. PROCEEDING.)
The_SCAR
