#algorithm - Hello Poetry

What is wrong with me that one asterisk row can throw my whole body into alarm? Not disagreement. Not irritation. Alarm. A tiny string of stars- ***** and suddenly my chest goes tight, my thoughts start slamming drawers, my jaw locks, my hands go cold, then hot, then useless. Fight. Flight. Freeze. All three crowding the doorway at once. Stop. It is only a clerical error, a $2.99 AI filter purchased in haste by an absent admin, a cheap, blind machine pawing at our lines. What is wrong with me? I have lived too long through so many versions of this. I have watched ministers lean over culture with their disinfectants and scissors. I have watched them warn, label, soften, trim. I have watched whole eras ask art to apologize for having a body. So why this? Why now? Why this absurd little mark sends me so quickly into white animal panic. Is it the child in me? Who witnessed adults rename pain until truth sat in the corner with its mouth washed out. Is it the books I chose? All those years reading the wild ones, the heretics, the drunks, the holy fools, the queers and runaways, the swamp prophets and asphalt mystics, learning that language is the last real house some people ever get. Is that it? That the written line is not content to me. Not copy. Not mood. Not product. It is breath made visible. A hand on the table saying I was here. I wanted. I feared. I knew. And if some backend ghost slides in and powders over the mouth, I do not see moderation. I see desecration. Should it be like this? Probably not. Should I care this much? Probably not. I overreact. Because I am not only seeing a damaged word. I am seeing the body taught to doubt its own tongue. And I cannot stand it. Maybe I am only this: Someone who still believes the line should arrive whole. The body should arrive whole. The word should reach the reader with its dirt, its blood, its sweat, its bad manners, its human weather intact. And if that makes me excessive, touchy, difficult, unfit for the new upholstered silence, then what is wrong with me is that I still think a poem should be allowed to keep its teeth.

0

Apr 12

Apr 12, 2026 at 1:48 PM UTC

William-A-Gibson

What Is Wrong With Me?

What is wrong with me that one asterisk row can throw my whole body into alarm? Not disagreement. Not irritation. Alarm. A tiny string of stars- ***** and suddenly my chest goes tight, my thoughts start slamming drawers, my jaw locks, my hands go cold, then hot, then useless. Fight. Flight. Freeze. All three crowding the doorway at once. Stop. It is only a clerical error, a $2.99 AI filter purchased in haste by an absent admin, a cheap, blind machine pawing at our lines. What is wrong with me? I have lived too long through so many versions of this. I have watched ministers lean over culture with their disinfectants and scissors. I have watched them warn, label, soften, trim. I have watched whole eras ask art to apologize for having a body. So why this? Why now? Why this absurd little mark sends me so quickly into white animal panic. Is it the child in me? Who witnessed adults rename pain until truth sat in the corner with its mouth washed out. Is it the books I chose? All those years reading the wild ones, the heretics, the drunks, the holy fools, the queers and runaways, the swamp prophets and asphalt mystics, learning that language is the last real house some people ever get. Is that it? That the written line is not content to me. Not copy. Not mood. Not product. It is breath made visible. A hand on the table saying I was here. I wanted. I feared. I knew. And if some backend ghost slides in and powders over the mouth, I do not see moderation. I see desecration. Should it be like this? Probably not. Should I care this much? Probably not. I overreact. Because I am not only seeing a damaged word. I am seeing the body taught to doubt its own tongue. And I cannot stand it. Maybe I am only this: Someone who still believes the line should arrive whole. The body should arrive whole. The word should reach the reader with its dirt, its blood, its sweat, its bad manners, its human weather intact. And if that makes me excessive, touchy, difficult, unfit for the new upholstered silence, then what is wrong with me is that I still think a poem should be allowed to keep its teeth.