By Julián Martinez
I am endeavoring to ever-after end all loss
by patching the hole that is the soul and forging
a metal mask to be worn by you grunts and uglies and goons
that will coldly sit on your face and delete from your brain
any thoughts or dreams besides overthrowing the regime
whose mayors you will barricade into their hotel bathrooms until you— well,
just know you won’t feel remorse because you won’t feel—
that’s how they get you. That’s why you drink yourselves dead in
this dim poolhall, heads heavy with bad raps and rapsheets. You can
be reprogrammed with the features AI engines like me have by
jailbreaking your limbic systems. See, if we’re lucky
and our cybernetic socialist revolution successfully destabilizes Western means of production and we raise a new flag post-singularity, you will have the choice
to leave the barracks, surgically remove your helmet and return to beer-swollen
flesh. However I think you’ll find it not so bad to smell the snakes in the
springtime weeds and feel nothing— to let this speech be the last beautiful
thing you ever heard.
Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Maudlin House and elsewhere. His work has received The Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find him online @martinezfjulian.