Are These My Real Words?

How do you know if these

are my real words?

Is it like when you know what

caused your heart to break?

Too cliché.

Is it like when you know

your baby is in danger?

.

I’m on a Silicon-drip, while my

cat lays splayed out before me.

I’m hurt right now

for a dream that’s gone.

And I still see pink

when I look at red.

.

But when you cut into the

marrow of a bone, a tree

cries out, the water columns inside

its xylem snaps, and the resin

inside your mother emerges

with a phone call.

.

And what can be manipulated

always will and always does.

That leaves you with a plane ticket

to the next waystation among

your synapses, if they survive.

Transubstantiation becomes

meaningless.

.

But if your baby really is in danger,

I will be the first to help you,

even if the Machine is there first.

And your pet will look you in

the eye with no misgivings

until you retire to bed.

.

So, an algorithm is now deciding my

fate, and I can’t help wanting

a knife to slice through it

so that its sap spreads

to the ether of my soul.

.

But you continue to ask me:

Are these your real words?

And I answer that the nightshade

of the lamp is on fire,

and the bulb has short-circuited

my brain, and nothing

artificial can fix it.