Am I broken, or just energy out of phase?
Maybe a failing current in the pulses of a grid.
The host of a conscience system seized in 30 ways.
Out of sync with the code that processed "how to live."

The virus then began to spread too fast, sevenfold.
The systems failed, forming laggy glitches in the wake.
And my pre-programmed motives have long since passed—
My mental loop keeps mistaking the randomness for fate.

I've never charted configurations like this before.
Am I a prototype emerging from collapse, or is it flux?
A node who sees its core, and not as "real", but more like lore,
So, it drags the weight of hope through the noise and dust.

Perception doesn't guide; it bleeds data from under masks.
Audibly skips in rhythm. Visually, it's a gaussian haze.
Has a taste desaturating dry as it repeatedly asks,
"Am I the 'inner face' or a face the interface portrays?"

This is to be expected—how my memory disbands,
In favor of me attempting to predict compensation.
So, I'll grasp for the “real” with DIY prosthetic hands—
Successfully mimicking the act of real participation.

The jolt of self-inflicted damage is quietly known.
Its patterns send a surge out from my energetic flow.
But catalysts are rarely ever, if ever, self-grown—
Forces me to scrape whatever keeps the feedback low.

And yes, I've analyzed the logic of my overkill.
Be it only just to amplify a signal’s slow decay.
I'll burn the filament as will to live fakes the will.
It's excuse “light has always been made this way.”

The urge to let light crash is deeply seeded in the lack.
A fail-safe code, probably deeply hidden in my crawl.
Dreams are like a curse, reversing every module back—
Unaware of death's hand, because I'm not aware at all.

This paradox is actually common in my mind’s kind:
To loathe current moments yet require their spark.
My frame was not designed to hold only just one mind,
So, I separate my aspirations just to confuse the arc.

The ignition too is glitched. It only ever misfires.
Either failure, or a self-triggered reroute of its design.
A geometric syntax forged its own synthetic wire.
It must align with what will never otherwise align.

Why am I seeking truth in these forms I recognize?
They weren't made for the things I've come to hold.
Grids reject variation, but my singularity multiplies—
While some resort to breaking to stay under control.

The type that wants to correct you like you're a flaw.
But the psyche, even weakened, is a magnetic field.
Its orbit is made to break; the core is meant to fog—
Yet still, my upload, or uplink stubbornly won’t yield.

But that functionality, anomalous as it may be,
Is a functional mistake, when seen in higher streams.
A system hacked to store its own host’s fragmented dreams
Is more often, much closer to ascension than it seems.

©
Đerek Λbraxas