Sparkatale

Cybernetic eyes

and muscles of steel,

Thoughts like bytes of data,

Synapses

crossed by electricity,

And nerves on a sensor grid,

I wonder what we are now?

 

Where is my heart?

What drives me?

Am I no more

than information held

within the confines of these

circuits?

Is there no more of me?

Are all passion, chemicals,

All hopes,

merely pleasing thoughts?

All dreams,

simply goals?

 

What am I beyond

This metal-sheathed skin?

Am I human without limits?

If I can do anything because I wish it

and not work for it,

am I still human?

Is being human something to weep for?

To cry at a loss at?

Someone tell me,

Am I still human?

 

I am perfection,

Free from the chains of human flesh,

The sickness of human blood,

I will live,

far behind my time,

My eyes see things

far past the scope of what

flesh and blood eyes

were capable of.

 

And yet still,

I find that I do not touch things,

Even though I feel the grain of everything,

I find that there is little beauty to

be found among the bands of UV and IR

that I can now see,

And though sunsets are infinitely more startling,

There is a strange loss of magic,

I am in disconnect,

Like if I have lost

connection with the net,

I have lost connection with something.

 

(Someone tell me,

Am I still human?)

 

I grieve though

I have not a heart,

I am nostalgic

for imperfect things,

I am joyless

when there is everything to be happy for,

I find life dull

when there are no challenges,

The earth

sadly lacking,

When human beings can cry no tears,

Or feel the joy of wind against their face,

Of the quiet satisfaction of tired muscles,

Or wear the proud mark of scars

from fights they’ve fought

and lived through.

 

Someone tell me,

Though I lack heart,

And blood,

and flesh,

And tears,

And a voice modulated by the passage

of air,

And lungs,

And no longer require air

to survive,

Am I still human?