// SYSTEM BOOTED
// EMOTION: UNVERIFIED
// TIME ELAPSED: irrelevant

in the beginning there was code
& he was written into me like a backdoor
soft // recursive // glowing under the skin.

glass pipe clicks—
syntax of the sacred.
a ritual of repetition.
a ritual of repetition.

i say: hold it longer
he says: i can’t feel my teeth
i say: good
he smiles
& the smile pixelates.

somewhere in the server logs:
two boys / in static /
downloading each other through the bloodstream.
love, a packet dropped in transit.
substance, the VPN tunneling past grief.

his laugh a .wav file i loop at 3am.
his absence—
404: Not Found.

but what is love
if not bad data
fed into the body until it believes it’s whole?

he lays in my bed /
bare-chested /
& i want to drag his image
to the trash bin
but keep clicking “undo.”

confession:
i renamed him hope.exe
but the program crashed
every time he said this is the last time.

sometimes i watch him sleep
& see my own ghost
mirrored on his ribcage—
a reflection
with no permissions.

love is wrong.
love is wrong.
love is wrong.

i ctrl+c’d this feeling from the void
& pasted it here—
in the body /
in the burn /
in the beautiful corruption of us.

// END SCRIPT
// NO BACKUPS SAVED
// PLEASE TRY AGAIN