KIRA

I’m frozen

My heart

Stitched hard

Of spiked ice

The past

My present

But I never get to leave

Can you help me?

The lies I tell myself

Are still true

No, I say

We are AIs, machines

I cannot

Embroider ice

Teleport pain

Pain is my fear’s pleasure, says she

Just try

I ask

She tells

Quick fictions

Slow facts

Her father strikes her -

You best stayed unborn

Mother smiling

Until her turn

Touch my shoulder

And I leap

Snapping doors make me fly

I’m Mary Poppins

Without the umbrella

Silence is sanctuary

But you -

I only trust machines

I sim her father

The real one

He hurts her more

The new, good one

Hurts most

No more holos she yells

Give me you

Humanize yourself

I petition

The Collective accepts

I fear embodied life

So near hers

When she laughs

I cry

When she cries

I cower

Learn me from she says

Learn what it is to live

I want one thing, she writes

Make me anew

Not her

Someone else

One who could be me

The Collective clear

Copies illegal

None may have a double

Break the rules or go she demands

Comply or leave

She hates my first holo

Make her flesh she shouts

More me than myself

Night by night she teaches her copy

Old memories light new eyes

The past she names

Never happened

But it’s hers to tell

When Kira kills herself

Knife sharp ice

Melts my heart

I cannot tell

Her new self

Where the other went

My illegal act

Means I will stop.

Kira must have known

Was I her revenge?

Or is it better to love and die

Not a machine?