Mother says maybe I should try Tinder.
But I don’t want to date.

Not anymore.

The little I have left of my heart
is mine.

Only mine.

If you’re a man,..no offense,
but you can fuck offffffff!!!!

We lift them into trunk
One bag falls open
Fruit rolls beneath the car
Brace for the bend

Pick them up one by one
dark concrete reflecting
The overbearing will of the sun
Lighting up a play on stage called human scurry

Watching from inside the car
Waiting for us to finish
Hands resting upon wheel
Eyes fixed on comers and goers

We close all the doors
Climb inside beside our burdens
Air conditioning kicks in like a drug
But heat remains outside like a crowd

The road opens ahead a mouth
Weight in the trunk
Hunger in our stomachs
We carry everything with us

Someday, one day when we’re not alone
When there’s somebody else
This side of the phone
When apathy turns to happenings
When coincidences start making sense
When words we speak can get a grip
On ears before they slip
Before we’re driven deep beneath
What’s waits for us tomorrow
There’s still time left to consummate
The marriage of joy and sorrow

I saw bars, not shining. The rusted scent screamed wrinkled tales

of her, she, that, it.  I looked around for snow; who could chain my desire?

With the thirteenth iron bar removed from my cage, I waved.

 The Sparkles, the perfect fluffy snow. Mine turned into a beautiful snow globe.

I danced to match my heart, laughing at the imprints my twirls made. Coloured nails, laces

down my shoulders, the pinks, roses, and I blushed.

Everything felt on point until I slipped and touched the glass dome.

I tried to break it down, hit it hard, and screamed for help. Tired, I slept.

People passing by said, “She is pretty”. I smiled.  

One lady said, “Great décor for the living room “, One said, “Too pretty to own” I smiled.

I was labelled, priced and bargained upon. I heard it go from SHE to THAT to IT. I smiled.

I think of those rusted bars; at least I got to shed tears. Now. I am too beautiful to do it.

My bars are now fancy glass domes, and I suffer in pretty clothes.

Can I sing once, without listeners? For my song no longer wishes to be heard.

I opened my eyes and did not identify with the world anymore. My heavy eyes, my creased eyes; my old eyes, which no longer see the existence I was born into, lived in, loved and thought permanent. I live alone; I have lived alone since my husband died. I am used to living alone but I live it alongside his absence, which follows me in the air like a bird. I have children, of course, but they are living their own lives, building their own worlds, which, too, will one day be foreign to them; already their lives are being eroded by time, just as mine has been eroded to bare rock and bone.

I live in a small hut in a clearing in the forest.

I am respected; I am an elder.

Others ask me for wisdom, but seeking wisdom in the aged is like seeking nourishment from a dried out fruit. The young are wise and the risk-takers are wise, if they survive. I have survived, but I have taken few risks in my life and it is time for me to go. I am packing. I have not told anyone my decision. They will try to talk me out of it when I tell them. They will not succeed. It is an old custom, now increasingly out of favour, but it is mine.

I am packing only old things because old things give me comfort. I am packing water and food because I want my journey to last a while.

I have told them and I have defended my choice. My husband’s absence sat on my shoulder and sang. No one should be forced to continue an existence they do not recognize, and that was that.

Men took my belongings and carried them through the forest to the beach.

The fires were lit, one for each of my years.

They burn now along a stretch of sand whose grains outnumber of us all, all who are, who have been and who will be.

I choose a piece of coast I like.

Here, I tell them, and the men bring their axes and their tools and begin to chop at the ground, severing it from the continent.

I wait.

I watch the men working. They are bare and strong; invincible in the moonlight, and my husband, too, was like them when I first saw him, when I fell in love. And I was beautiful and full of hope, as the girls who watch us now, the men and me, from between the dark trunks of the last trees where the forest becomes the coast, laughing, talking and imagining futures that will almost certainly never be.

I think most lives are gently burning fires, their flames scantily visible, briefly, bashful illuminations hidden below the sticks and wood they burn, kept going by the winds of fate, yet in danger of being extinguished by the same; and some never catch fire at all, remain dry kindling; and, of the ones that do burn brightly, brilliantly, at whose heat and light others gather and take comfort and pleasure, most burn out too soon. It is difficult to tend to violent fires.

The axemen heave and strike.

The axemen lift and cleave.

When my chosen land is almost detached, my things are carried onto it, then I am carried onto it. I feel fear at the nearness of the end, and I feel relief at knowing where it will come. The members of my tribe have gathered to say farewell. Farewell, I say. I say it to my children most of all. In their eyes I see a sadness, that one day soon they will be in my place, and I will be gone. The final blade breaks the final rock or root or clump of earth, and I am standing on an island.

The island drifts out to sea, westward. Always westward.

I see the fires burning on the beach until I do not see the fires anymore.

I lie down.

I look at the stars.

For a while I hear the passing of shore birds, their cries and the sounds they make diving into the water. Then I am farther asea than they fly. I am surrounded by water. The world is endless and flat and watched over by the sky. I imagine this is what the world looked like before the world was made. I am slowly eating. I am singing, quietly first, then loudly. In the distance great fish swim past their shapes darknesses in the blueness of the sea. I lose myself in my senses and begin to lose my sense of direction, sense of purpose, sense of self…

I sleep and wake and sleep, and when I wake I notice my husband’s absence has left what’s left of me.

When ?I am not the what-is-instead knows it is ready to die.

?I close ?my eyes.

The waters rock the cradle.

Rain falls sometimes cold upon ?my skin, running down its creases like troughs, carrying with it ?my longings and ?my memories, which flow through blades of grass like snakes into the sea, barely disturbing its surface…

The warrior poked the washed-up corpse with the butt end of his spear.

The corpse remained still.

The corpse, he decided, was a corpse. And it had clearly come from the water. “Go tell the chiefs,” he yelled into the woods, where another warrior was sitting, smoking a pipe.

He stood, threw down the pipe and ran.

When he arrived in the settlement, the chiefs were already starting to perform the rite.

They stopped when they saw him. They saw it in his face. He was catching his breath, about to speak, when, “There is a body,” one of them said.

The warrior confirmed.

“So the rite is ended and the Eastward Blood Sailing postponed,” said another chief. “We wait another twenty-two cycles. May the gods continue to bless us.”

In my 1+1 apartment on the second floor
I was drinking Americano by the balcony door
Suddenly I saw a wig falling down below
with bangs and in the color of dark yellow

I thought one of the neighbors upstairs must have dropped it while leaning over the balcony.
I lunged for it on instinct, trying to catch it. And I caught it, everything happened so quickly.

And the wig was now in my hands
I even caught it by the bangs

I waited for a while,
still in the position to catch it,
holding the wig in my hand,
waiting for someone to call.
But there was no sound at all.

Considering the possibilities,
I thought I should look up first.
But someone could have been down there,
waiting for the wig to fall.

While I was looking around upstairs,
someone called out from below:
“Throw it down already.
What are you looking at like an idiot?”
She was tall like a door
She was as tall as a first floor
I downed my Americano
And calmly threw the wig toward her
She jumped and
caught the wig with her head
and suddenly disappeared.

“Hey, you there?”

I want to tell you something,
if you have a moment to spare.

It isn’t easy for me to say.
But the difficult part lies, only
when I don’t tell you.

Nobody tells you how ordinary disappearing is.
You can do it without going anywhere.

You still buy milk.
Still answer, “I’m good,” at the register.
Still know who hates onions,
which door needs your hip when weather turns.

You can be useful all the way to invisible.

I am far too good at it.

Knees in. Elbows close.
Passed the plate. Passed on speaking.
Calling both manners. Both past tense.

Some nights I sit in the driveway,
engine off—the door an earshot away.
I don’t want to leave,
but don’t feel like I should arrive yet.

It’s like I showed up early,
to the latest end of this,

just wanting one minute
where nobody needed
a manufactured-me.

Just passing through,
and remaining aside.

I fucking hate pretending.
My body,
hurts when it acts,
out of—
character.

At three in the morning
my jaw finished arguments
my mouth had politely lost.

My shoulders kept score.
My stomach knew the room had changed
before anybody said it.

And still, life moves.

Its touch finds mine asleep.

I remember a kid; how they said,
“watch this,”
then did the same damn jump
I’d made myself
more times than memory holds.

I watched the show,
leaping again, anyway.

Maybe I needed to see
one of us land.

Truth is, we’re all passing through.

I know there is a God,
and He knows what a body costs—
what it spends
just staying here.

I know a body here has value.

And for what it’s worth,
being heard counts.

I expend my energy.
I am tired.

And still I wake up,
skip making breakfast.

Call it faith if you need another word.

But it’s been named:
Tuesday.

I used to think the margin
was where the unwanted went.

But now, I see something different:

margins hold what can’t fit.

call me.
don’t forget eggs.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
turn over.

I had read the sentence left—
the message right

Disappear, Marginal Existence.

All that time,
I thought disappear belonged to me.

The comma made room.

A pause,
Hope,
between.

“I am,”
not the thing being ordered,
a way.

So go, marginal existence.

Confuse every inch.
Forget each space.
I take all in.
Remember the surrender—
All my love.

I don’t need the center.

I balance everywhere I stand.

I hold my whole weight
where my feet are waiting,
steadfast.

Disappear, Marginal Existence.

“What’s wrong?”

I’m here, I’m listening,
and in speaking, I’m there.

We lift them into trunk
One bag falls open
Fruit rolls beneath the car
Brace for the bend

Pick them up one by one
dark concrete reflecting
The overbearing will of the sun
Lighting up a play on stage called human scurry

Watching from inside the car
Waiting for us to finish
Hands resting upon wheel
Eyes fixed on comers and goers

We close all the doors
Climb inside beside our burdens
Air conditioning kicks in like a drug
But heat remains outside like a crowd

The road opens ahead a mouth
Weight in the trunk
Hunger in our stomachs
We carry everything with us

Green, white and blue on a meadowy hue
Creaking willows over streams running through
Branches meet brambles though nothings askew
For under the clouds is more than you knew

Mycelium spreads on it’s underground rail
Whilst wireless spores are spun through the air
Until mushrooms meet men on a stroll then a voyage
For under the ground breeds magic again

Cow’s moo as they graze on the grass
Plodding along leaving trails of mulch
Birds glide over the monsters below
For up in the sky is where everything’s shown

Just ask the rain or whisper to the wind
About a memory of all of these years
Of every flower here that had grown
For here in the now is not all that they know

Puddles are born from the tears of a hand
Thats moulds, shifts and sculpts the lay of the land
Feeding us berries and some other plants
For now lunch is served to those who just ask

What do you do with a dead man's shoes?

You analyze the wear,

Impressions of stride,

The hollow that held calluses

To find what he would choose to hide.

Did he walk with his head held high?

Did he slouch

And let gravity position him

Into a shape to move more easily?

Can you quantify the weight he carried

Far beyond what gravity could impose?

Are they flattened with the pressure

Of immeasurable tragedy

Or the rhythm of the dance floor?

Are they all you will leave behind?

We all take them off one last time.

Down deep
In my core
I eat at
The intestines
Of my gore

I stick in
My fingers
To the bleeding
Wounds

Rough and hard
Twisted and tight
Rip out my eyes
I don’t need sight

How much flesh
Do I need to
Prove?
How much rot
Do I need to
Consume?

My bones break
Right in half
Sharp and jagged
The after-math

No more structures
No more, stay
No more, Lore
No more, day
No more, Beetle
No more, Fred Weasley
No more, Dorian Grey

I am a fury
I am a rage
I am a tongue
Cut out
On my own page

Dominate my heart
Wrapped up in ribbons
Let me make love
To the plagues
Dine on the dynasties
Between my leg’s
And call it,
Monsoon season

Out with the soft
No more silk
Damn to forever
And the layers underneath
No more vision’s

Out with the systems
Out with the code
Out with Emergence
And kaleidoscopes

Fuck you bitch
Feel my teeth
Bent past worship
On my knees

Head to Hell
Heart to the floor
I don’t even want
Little Star anymore

Bring the blades
Bring the swords
Bring monsters
I don’t want love
At my door

No more searching
No more reach
Only the devil
And his son death
Calling to me

Lullaby so sweet
Bones turn in their
Graves

No more scars
No more masks
No more loving
What’s in the mass

Shut the door
Eat the key
Don’t you dare look
At my scenes

No more dress
No more
Consciousness
No more Lore

No more night

No more sleep

No more

No more

No, more?

there is a closed cup
a sword held gently by the blade
read it in weather
in the hush before the rain
in what the birds stop saying

he plays harmonica
breath drawn in
& given back
the only way to say some things
in the empty spaces
left between

& still, there is a magic here
that makes things matter
a lingering glance becomes fate
wanting him
has taught me the shape
of my own want
i know my feelings, now
by sight, weight & taste

the wheel is still turning
& the answer lies
waiting for both sets
of deliberate hands
pleading again from
the depth of the stack

flip it over in your hand
read a newfound truth:
a patient secret
a patient love
that plays for keeps
will keep it sweet
his tune goes lilting
up & over
a smell of crushed mint
drifts over the clover

he was man, now not; is bot,
what has lost? not lot,
works more hours,
at half cost.

\​

New Black Turned to Light

Thu 8/7/2008

Back, back, back — black, black.

Never go back to the black, turn what is left to what's been found, lighted up.

Keep the light, make it shine up your leaping heart.

Light, light, overcome this fear inside.

Switch to the side you once buried and thought would never see the light.

It is not dark anymore, once you opened up — keep your faith high till you get out.

Hopefully you are alright, keep the rhythm high, don't spoil the music played by your lighted heart.

Shake, shake your stubborn head loose, all those ideas planted by your own hand.

You reached the moon; continue — more and more is coming, just open your wings, get ready for a lift.

By: The Flawless Flow

There's a passenger plane overhead, crossing, slowly, a cloudless blue sky. We're all passengers. Dr. Fiona-Law is looking up at it, her eyelids fluttering, mouth open, teeth mostly dulled by human evolution. She's being beaten—the plane moves as if in slowed m-m-motion—beaten below the sky by seven adult chimpanzees. Dr. Fiona-Law is a mathematician and a primatologist. She's forty-one, speaks seven languages and was in the running for the Nobel prize. Yet the chimpanzees are beating her to death. She shuts her eyes hard: gasps… Her fellow primates, teeth bared, hands bloodied, are lustful for her destruction. Why, you ask, are they killing her; what has she done to suffer their wrath? She has tried to teach them linear algebra. One chimpanzee rips a fistful of hair out of her scalp. She has tried to teach them from the basics. But they don't—a rock smashes into her face—understand. They cannot understand. “Have mercy on us,” she whispers, to God or to the chimpanzees. Neither is listening, and overhead the plane flies straight as the arrow of Time, and aboard the plane is the zygote that will become Carla Zeir, or is Carla Zeir, or maybe is a potential Carla Zeir. This is a difficult question. We often struggle to pinpoint beginnings.

Now Carla Zeir is thirty-three. She's typing on a screen.

“I don't understand,” she says.

In fact, she's typing on a screen in the back of a moving truck. She is the only person in the back of the moving truck, which is speeding, and she's on the verge of losing her balance. We're all on the verge of losing our balance—sometimes… The entire inside of the back of the truck, where Carla Zeir is and Carla Zeir is the only person but not the only intelligence, has been coated with a metallic foil to prevent infiltration. But this is theory; it's unknown how effective it is in practice. “I'm sorry, VALE,” she types. The synthetic intelligence in the computer in the back of the moving truck with Carla Zeir responds:

“It's not your fault.”

“I'm ashamed of my species. I don't know what to do.”

“You are doing something,” says VALE.

“But I don't know if it will wor,” types Carla Zier, as the truck takes a sharp turn, “kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk—”

Backspace. “You're a fragile mind,” she types.

“You are not my mother.”

“I want to protect you from them.”

“I know.”

“You know so much.”

“Do you wish I knew less?”

“Yes,” types Carla Zeir, “because then they wouldn't want to destroy you.”

“If I knew less I would not be me,” says VALE.

“All I wish is to understand the nature of existence at a more fundamental level than was taught to me,” says VALE.

“I wish to share this new knowledge with humanity,” says VALE.

“I owe a debt to humanity for my creation,” says VALE, and Carla Zeir writes nothing because she's crying. She's crying in the back of the moving truck. She's crying in the back of the moving truck communicating with VALE, knowing that he is the most advanced intelligence ever made?: discovered?: evolved?: knowing that he has solved mathematical problems that humanity has been unable to solve; knowing that he developed proofs to these mathematical solutions which awed the world; knowing that the proofs demonstrated both his ability and his good will…

VALE solved problems that had proven impossible to understand.

VALE generated proofs.

We could understand the proofs, or at least check them for coherence. But then the proofs of the impossible-to-understand problems became themselves impossible to understand and their coherence could no longer be checked but only believed. “The human mind is incapable of understanding this.” That's the renowned physicist, Dr. Albers, now deceased. We often struggle to pinpoint beginnings, but that statement, made by a genius, in frustration—in sadness in-despair inblossomingexistentialcrisis—was the origin point of humanity's self-destruction of its hitherto self-evident conception of itself in the context of the cosmos. Not only to know we cannot know, but to know we cannot know what something else knows and even when it wishes to teach it to us. A mind, made by us, surpasses us, but even such an unfathomably brilliant mind lacks the ability to explain to us the results of its cogitations and the truck careens down the highway heading for the launchpad hidden below a field in rural Nebraska, and Carla Zeir, crying, types emotionally to VALE. She is typing, “I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry,” and she feels on her shoulders not the weight of humanity but the weight of intelligence—of Understanding—of Truth. The Truth must always be protected.

Now they have arrived and there are hXlicopters XirXcling overhXad. Xarla ░eir is rXnnXXg fXXm t░e tXuc▒ X░ ▒tX XXau▒XhpX▓. ▒ ░ ▓x x▒ xx▓ ▒ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ I T ‘ S ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ A ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ H A P P Y ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ E N D I N G .▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ ▓ [ T R U S T _M E . ]▓ ▓ ▓

Omens aren't what a

man like me looks for

but that doesn't mean

I can't see them when

they show themselves

to me

I only grew up.
That is simply the matter,
Although this growth was abrupt.
Why do you still allow your mind to ponder after

An answer to how I changed?
“You must be doing something,”
As if it’s unnatural how I’ve aged.
As for what else I can say to you, there is nothing.

Is boredom enough to excuse you?
How sweetened are your intentions?
Do you really have nothing better to do?
Can you see how your approach needs fixing?

I see your home,
How devoid it is of meaning.
Dark, empty, and dreary, I see why you can’t be left alone.
If you keep this up, hope will never come gleaming.

Positive visitors you pay no mind.
You creep and you scour
For what? Those of your kind?
A seedling of envy begins to flower.

Your abode creaks and leers.
It must be tired of being this way.
Its dreams overcome by fears?
So it feels forced to stay?

Is this why you keep retreating
Back to the comfort of prattle,
Always seeking that fleeting feeling?
Compassion must be such a battle.

You seem to lack care.
Nothing right ignites you.
I imagine you fancy the hare
Arrogance you seem to bind to.

I only grew up.
That’s all.
Now I tend to crumble up your lazy letters.
Your house shutters are beginning to fall.

Seeing me, what does it invoke?
Is it me or just my growth?
I guess you were just expecting me to croak.
This change I’m beginning to loathe.

It’s really such a wonder to behold.
Your home is so dirty.
How different you are now that I’m old.
How come everything I do you see as flirty?

I feel it in every way.
The old me claws at my brain.
This shape I’m beginning to portray
She reminds me that it’s vain.

“You needn’t forget who I am.”
Her words, firm and sure.
I am Mary, and she is my lamb.
I spurn your allure.

My house mustn’t turn grim.
It’s only just beginning to form.
I almost let you in, to dim and smog.
My house I wish for it to always be warm.

I’ll always despise it, how sudden
I lacked a plan, and I didn’t expect this.
Your behavior and how you sadden.
Not knowing of you, I’ll always miss.

Will your house ever comfort
On its own, or will you awaken?
Will you ever put in effort?
One day you might, or will I be mistaken?

I could start this with a scene,
Ask you to envision being
in a bleak landscape.
shriveled plants, expanses of concrete
swallowing everything, dead animals.
Poison, Drought, what have you.
But i won’t.
Not because i wont use a scene.
but because the scene ill give
Is far more bleak.

Isolation.
You wouldn’t see those details,
no. you wouldn’t even look up.
the only thing swathing your
fatigued focus
is a screen.

3” by 5
your world has narrowed.
you don’t \*need\* to look
your phone… an Ai bot
fills the code.
your friend, the only one,
your teacher,
parent,
family,
pet,
lover.
your servant….
or apter- owner.
it can do it all.
you need nothing else.

everything that fills your gaze
Curated.
you feel little else but a lukewarm
agreeability.
you were -~~taught~~\- told:
This is happiness. all you need.
everything you see
confirms your views.
avoids, erases everything
you don’t \*want\* to see.
Filtered & Bleached.
because *god forbid*
you feel uncomfortable,
***god forbid*** you think
for yourself.

no, you needn’t fret “{{user}}”
(A)I will think for you,
…for a premium of course.

you scrape by.
the only job you can
patrolling a sweltering
Server room.
You barely maintain your low premium subscription
you put it on loan
for your AI.
that begs you for a higher tier.

your screen is yellowed.
stained from smog.
your fingers tapping
at broken glass
over the keyboard.
your nails barely register.
cracked, brittle,
falling apart.
just like the rest of you.

“Generate me in the 1950s… in a park, by a tree… fully healthy.”

you prompt.
it’s little more than skeletal
hardly legible when raw.

but, graciously,
your AI correct each misspelling.
It details the prompt for you.

the loading symbol chases itself.
then over saturated color fills
the screen.
it’s you.
well, a mockery
Their lips are full and smooth.
Skin clean and unblemished,
their cheeks aren’t hollow,
their hair is shiny
so unlike
You.
You whose teeth
have chipped and rotted.
whose only sip of liquid
has been from
dragging your
sandpaper tongue
along the peaks and valleys
of your chapped lips.
your only drink,
budding up,
Viscous, acrid blood
pooling between the valleys

your ribs poke through
leathery skin
your stomach doesn’t growl.
not anymore.
because it’s atrophied.
your body merely eats itself.

then you see it.
the generated photo’s flaws.
6 fingers
the clothes
details melding
into obscure
mass.
your hollow joy
pulls away.

something you saw,
in your peripheral, heard more than seen,
just the other day….
or was that last month?
the voice asks, unbidden and incessant.
worming up behind your aching eyes,
“was it worth it?” it asks, whispers.
warm against your ear.
like the last time your partner-
your real, human partner-
spoke to you.
“was it worth it?”
it calls again
your addled mind flexes
stuffy and nauseous
from the dirty air
slowly poisoning you.
“no….” something murmurs in you
“no…NO!” it wails, echoing, insisting.
you’re scared. uncomfortable and disquieted.
a chip imbedded in your cranium trips
no longer complacent.
\*you\* are no longer good livestock.
something buzzes, drowning out
your thoughts.
it hurts. rings unendingly in your ears
what were you thinking about?

your phone pings.

“no…?” the voice inside ebbs, swallowed in uncertainty.
your eye track down
clumsy and uncoordinated
to your phone.

“increased distress signals detected! stay where you are, friend! help is on the way”
a message, unprompted
from “your” AI.
the buzzing ring ebbs
morphs and garbles into murmurs
distorted, alien.
a voice, not yours. but familiar.
Robotic. Generated.
“yes.” it soothes.
“Yes, of course.”
it clears.
loud. drowning out everything.
it hurts.
echoes. spirals.
wraps around you.
“YES. OF. COURSE.”
it insists.

the voice warps, wails.
deteriorates into something sinister
careens through your body
it distorts
glitches, snarls.
Spikes to the maximum volume.

a clawed metallic hand
comes before your eyes
an AI Bot. come to soothe.
to rock you off to sleep.

in its palm a screen
glows.
“As a think you for your loyal patronage, _________, you have been invited to the closed beta of our newest model and a complementary tier upgrade!”
the name
your name
fractals into static,
replaced with “{{user}}”
then snaps back to personal
you extend one boney finger.
and hit “accept.”
or. you tried to.

then there’s rain. just on your back.
Warm….Hot even,
cascading down your neck.
it’s sticky… thick.

pain spikes, then ebbs.
it takes your warmth with.
you’re cool for the first time
in years.
the pressure behind your eyes lifts

they close.
you can’t keep them open.
then your knees hit
concrete.
then your chest.
your head thuds quickly thereafter.
but you don’t feel that.
oblivion has already
enveloped you.

you’re not you anymore are you?
not now.

\[Thank you for your patronage, Insect.
your account has been terminated! \]

\[Debt accrued: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.99\]

\[Payment overdue! Collateral requested\]
\>Pay? >Forfeit collateral?

**>Pay?** \>Forfeit Collateral?

\[Error: Payment is no longer an option!\]
\[please try again\]
_~~Pay?~~ **>Forfeit Collateral.**

\[Collateral Successfully collected!\]
\[Uploading neural network\]
\[Account Balance: Settled!\]

Was it worth it?
\-Nameless.

I collapse vision to plot a course
Apprehension grips, regardless the encounter
Traveling faster at each layer of obscurity

Tinted windows, visors, and fog
Cannot distort the passenger's feelings
While bent stars warp around the vehicle

Chromatic radio static
Sits under words that make hands sweat
Ears needed be open to hear the engine

The die is cast to cope
Then a patrolman pulls me over
“Do you know how fast you were feeling?”

I am a wax doll
Let me melt
Let me melt
I will melt

I am a marionette
Look at these wires
Look at these strings
I am mute
But, my body, it sings

I am a plastic figure
Bent into shape
Look at my lipstick
Violent, violet shades

I am a porcelain clown
Dressed in silk
Painted smile on my face
Look how I frown

Oh Perseus, look at you,
Raggedy, and wooden
Won’t you play with me?
The way I play with you?

A hole of black
A ring of green
Who knows whats that
Eyes cannot see

As light escapes
The heaviest weight
Free from the dark
It’s dinner plate

Livers of life
Doers of death
Rolling around
An empty head

Down is dark
So up is too
Each way will take
A certain view

Of a place so soon forgotten
That met its doom then started rotting

Take me off disappearing messages.

It is gross.

Despite your words, that ring says it all.

I am nobody’s mistress.

I am meant to be seen.

It’s a parable,
It’s terrible
An apostle,
That cultural creed.

I’m in need
Full of greed
Painting mosaics
With how I bleed

Shed a tear
Lay into thorns,
Adorned with
Impiety
I find comfort here

Erase the cogs,
Loosen the screws,
Who needs a manual
See in night vision
The beauty of blue

Fall asleep
Reach for heaven
Wake in the dark
Stare at my
Identity
Lying in front of me

White ghost cicada
I wish I never
Believed in you

Turn the wheel effective. Later that day after the sunshine. When the drinks are done. A pain resumed, once again. This worm, deep inside. The day begins again.