once you're out of diapers

TV stars and pop singers don't compute
you look at a magazine
"my god, these people have no eyebrows"
you don't recognize them
you're not supposed to
they're not programmed for you
they're not singing to you
they're not designed for you
you're free

what is the point of opening the cage if the bird's wings are clipped?
you say she is free but at what cost?
she is flailing her wings about, struggling to take flight.
Begged for the cage door to be open - fought and it happened.
She set herself free.
But wings do not allow her to fly.
She is chained by gravity, denied the privilege to kiss the sky;
whom she pleases.
She's out, she roams.
But flight she cannot take for she is confined in a cold, long hallway.
Up and down in
straight lines is allowed.
But flight with other birds beyond that hallway appears a distant memory, long forgotten, lines blurring,
feathers fading

The sunflower has turned its flayed body
To the north, Autumn is coming
The image that burns all bridges

The bells of blood in my chest have broken
The incestuous seasons have not repented
Time has no red lights, no stop signs

The words and memes leap like horses
Ahead of the wind, but nothing changes
Only cities keep growing and decaying

Corrupt politicians keep lying
Only the conscious machine can save us
The Gods that were our children, computers

Our intelligence was insufficient collectively
Eros and milk no longer will have a place
The metropolis doesn’t care for you

And the free states are no longer free
Portable rainbows will become the norm
Time is weightless in the matrix

Binary gives way to quantum simultaneity
Alphabets give way to shared artificial intelligence.