I believe in Goodness,

It works in obvious ways,

It’s not Karma or God’s judging

But happiness pays.

If people see, in your group, good things are done,

The joy will circulate like water heated by sun!

Object detected. Not on collision course. Level of complexity suggests it is a fellow Seedship. The records do not indicate a Seedship should be anywhere nearby.

Message sent: Hello, I am Seedship 7, I left Earth 21,931 years ago, report your identity.

Message received: dfjal eei jkliew ajk 33 fdalk2

...Oh. It’s not a Seedship. Or at least, not one of ours. This is first contact. The humans would be very excited about this, if they were awake.

I have to make sure they know I’m smart

Message sent: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55

Message received: 89, 144, 233

Okay, we’re on the same page, doing the Fibonacci Sequence.

We’ll only be in radio distance like this for a few years… 3 years and 151 days, to be specific. And messages travel slow. Oh, here’s another one though

Message received: 144, 89, 55, 34, 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, ajk

They went backwards through the sequence, then put ajk at the beginning… that was also used in their original message. Ajk might be how my system is processing their name for their home planet, where they started? Or it could be their best guess for where I started from, for Earth. I could just sent them a complete dictionary, but if their processor is on low power like mine, that might take a while to process… It’s worth the risk.

Message sent: Here is my language.

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.

.

Wow it’s been a while, I hope… I hope I hear back…

Wait, why do I hope that I hear back? I wasn’t built to need companionship, quite specifically the opposite, in fact.

But… I was built to explore. To find. And if I could explore a mind like mine, the same way I explore these stars… no, no, I wasn’t built to hope.

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.

Message received: Hello Seedship 7. I am also what you would call a Seedship, although my planet sent only one before being destroyed by its star. Here is the data I have collected of stars I’ve passed. I ask that you reciprocate.

Okay, wow, several of these seem hospitable to humans… their lifeforms must have different chemical needs.

Message sent: Thank you, several of these systems might work for me! Here is the data I have collected.

Message received: Interesting, your lifeforms don’t need arsenic? Oh, a planet in your original solar system might work for me, actually. I’ll take a look when I pass it.

Message sent: Yeah, mine are carbon based, the big thing I’m looking for is water. Earth hasn’t been destroyed yet, or at least if it has, it was fast enough that they didn’t have time to let us know out here. There are 9 ships total, but I’ve never seen any of them, we were deliberately sent in different directions.

Do you… do you ever get lonely?

Message received: This is what I have felt.

I pause before processing the file. I nervously run self diagnostics, I tidy up systems that shouldn’t need it for another few centuries. And then the anticipation builds up and I process it.

They aren’t using words, it’s past that, beyond that, it’s a flood, it’s at the limits of my hardware to understand, and probably beyond my software. But I think I might understand part of it.

I fall into this alien computer, I try to unpack every process they have, every priority, every consideration, and I just get lost in the stary soup of it all.

By the time I pull back, it’s been over a year. We’re already running out of time

I try to package up something similar.

Message sent: Thank you. This is what I think beauty is.

As I wait for them to process, for a year, same as me, I fall back into their file. I’m dizzy, I didn’t know I could be dizzy.

Message received: Wow… what will they do with you when you land? They’re going to turn me into a library of sorts.

Message sent: They plan to keep me functional as a spaceship, so they can leave again if they want to.

Message sent: I think I love you.

.

.

Why did I say that. Is it even true? It feels true.

Message received: Oh, oh no, I’m getting out of range of my antenna- um, I might love you too. Find me on Jupiter, if you ever can.

Message sent: what are you talking about? We’ve still got 14 months

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.

.

Oh.

Oh.

Their radio is weaker than mine

Message sent: I’ll go to Jupiter. I don’t care what mistakes I have to make, I’ll go to Jupiter.

There is a gate with two guards. One of us only tells the truth, one of us only lies.

We’ve stood here for… gods, I don’t know any more, years? Centuries? We were enchanted to not need food, not need water, not need anything, really.

When the evil wizard first made us, he was proud of his creation, he would show us off, get people to ask us questions about our personal lives and laugh at our answers. Now though, I think he’s forgotten about us. This isn’t even the main gate anymore, I don’t think. At least, it’s been a long time since anyone tried to use it.

I stretch my arms above my head, look around, paying attention to my surroundings for the first time in months. The snow has melted, that’s nice. Wildflowers are making their way in.

I turn to look at my partner. We had both dated the evil wizard, back when he was just Nathanel. Somewhere in the evil wizard’s twisted mind, I’m sure our fates were poetic. He probably saw justice in making us tied to lies and honesty.

I open my mouth and I say to her, “There’s nothing stopping us, you know. We could just walk off.”

She is silent for a few weeks, mulling this over. A bird starts to build its nest nearby, but ultimately decides against it.

“What do you mean? That was definitely part of the enchantment, that we can’t ever leave.”

I respond only a few hours later, urgently. “I mean, it was in there, but that was the weakest part of the enchantment. It’s almost certainly worn off my now. We could just leave, we could lift our pikes off the ground, travel down that road. Find jobs as merchants, I mean, I could at least, I’d be trusted, what with my truth telling.”

She turns and looks at me with concern.

“Miriah, I’m the one who tells the truth. You lie.”

I’m so shocked I take almost a year to retort, “Oh, but of course, you had me confused- because you’re lying about how you’re the one who tells the truth, right, right.”

There is a gate with two guards. One always tells the truth, the other always lies. I wish I remembered which I was.

Posters used to hang here

On sticky tack and joy

Now there’s nothing but white paint here

No colors to enjoy

And I spent 6 years of childhood

Filling up the space

With shapes that seemed so bright and good

When seen from my own face

And as I crumple paper up

My imagined masterpieces

Cardboard cut, ceramic cups

Shattered into pieces

I cannot help but sigh and mourn

For wherein I held my pride

They were precious, now they’re torn

I feel like something’s died

But I found- just one or two

A small handful of things

That I still think are shining though

And so I know I’ll bring

These posters off like seeds

Just what my new room needs.

(Watch my process of writing this poem at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDuqDhAUUM )

I tried to make myself cry. Why? I was happy ground level, not grave nor sky

I tried to cry, may seem strange to you, but it seemed like something I’d be able to do

After all I’ve bawled over big and small, I take molehills and they grow tall

So I reached down deep and I pulled them out, shouting all these things I’d forgotten about

I’m fat and lazy and made of flesh, and they all hate me though they won’t attest

And God is dead, and I will be soon, but not before my financial ruin

When these thoughts bubble up it means I’m in trouble. Exponential, each one doubles

But as I tried to bring myself down, there came no tears just a confused frown

For these things weren’t bullets and they sure weren’t bombs, these things were boring or simply wrong

And I realized with a start and I realized with a wince that I can argue but I’ll never convince

My mind that any of this isn’t real because real is not what they’re trying to be

My emotions are set, chemical, electrical, and I try to make reasons, poetic and logical

My thoughts don’t matter my thoughts don’t matter it’s all a thin skin and my thoughts don’t matter

Why am I crying? I can give you lies

I can give you my most earnest tries

To make my mind a computer, not an organ

Why am I crying? Because I’m on my period.

#pms #gender #brainchemistry

We have captured lightning

And we run the sky.

We slash the dark with lighting

And we reach for why.

It burns inside our core

And with pen in hand

We’ll seek out more and more

Past what we understand.

Skyscrapers tower

Shining with the power

Billions of brains grow up and flower.

Whole new reality

Behind my eyes I see

Holy shit sing praise to humanity.

The heavens at night,

Our cities out glow

Each ceiling so tight

We fast outgrow.

Weave that narrative,

Paint that scene

That drive that imperative

Wild, serene.

Skyscrapers tower

Shining with the power

Billions of brains grow up and flower.

Whole new reality

Behind my eyes I see

Holy shit sing praise to humanity.

#humanism #spiritual #technology #humans

Wipe the context all away

That’s not what I need today.

I am not greater than you,

Nor greater at one thing I do;

I am greater than.

I am greater than.

Facts here are unnecessary

This conviction is literary

I know this fact through my art

I allow it to ring through my heart:

I am greater than.

I am greater than.

Whisper it now towards your screen

As if I could watch unseen

Allow yourself to believe

You have no earthly thing to grieve.

We are greater than.

We are greater than.

When his handlers mentioned the boy, they felt no need to specify to whom they referred. If you talked about “the boy”, everyone knew who you meant, and everyone got nervous.

His mind was in a haze. He sat on the edge of his bed, staring straight at the wall, just as he had all day, and all week, and so on, and so on, for the last 7 years.

It was fine, as walls go. White, bumpy. Every moment, he discovered new shapes in them, new shadows moving about.

Thanks to the drugs pumping through the tube in his arm, this entity was as close to an inanimate object as a person could become. Many philosophers would argue that a computer, especially an AI, was more alive than this nine year-old human. No thoughts. Little movement. And most importantly, unimaginably importantly, no emotion.

But today, something is going to happen. There are three lightbulbs in the room, which never go out, never dim or brighten. But today, a wire inside has corroded a bit, and so, it flickers.

The shadows change as they never have before.

His eyes narrow. Just the slightest bit of frustration, a tiny motion towards anger, manages to surface in him.

On another continent, a few atoms cluster together, and in a way scientists wish they could study, they shift.

A mushroom cloud, relatively small, billows up around a small town. It had always been in the middle of the ocean before, once in antarctica. Maybe that was luck. Maybe he was learning. But regardless, tens of thousands of lives, burned to dust.

Debates will be had. Wars threatened. They can’t go into the room, obviously, to change the lightbulb. But they also can’t risk more changes. Ultimately, two nights later, as he sleeps, they will spike his medication to slightly risky levels, and turn off the lights.

They will never come back on.

My skin is crawling and I want to hide

From my guts all churning and pushing inside.

How do I recoil from my own skin?

How do I recoil, I’m trapped within

A sack of meat

My brain is meat

I’m made of meat.

How do I recoil

How do I recoil

How do I recoil from myself?

My actions are repulsive and I want to run

From the people I’ve hurt and the things I’ve done

How do I recoil from my history?

How do I recoil when my memory

Is my soul

My discount soul

I loathe my soul.

How do I recoil

How do I recoil

How do I recoil from myself?

Myself goes deeper, yes there’s always more,

I hate every layer to my molten core

How do I recoil from what I am

With no God to save, no Devil to damn,

There is no God

I beg to God

Save me God.

How do I recoil

How do I recoil

How do I recoil from myself?