Hello

Count your blessings

They still bleed

You wake up to a password

I wake up in a bruise

Skin like broken windows

Heart like bad news

You scroll through another headline

I’m scraping at the day

You can mute the screaming

I still hear it anyway

You want upgrades?

I got molars cracking on the rent

I got lungs full of late fees

I got bones that bend

Not bendable terms of service

You call this progress

I call it pressure

You call it streamlined

I call it severed

Every glitch in your grid is a scar on my hand

Every crash in your cloud is a life you don’t understand

Flesh and error

Blood and bugs in the code (hey!)

You take for granted what keeps corroding on the road

Call and answer

I shout

You buffer and spin

You get your updates

I just grow older in my skin (my skin!)

You want forever?

Try waiting in this doctor’s line

Try shaking in this metal chair

While they mispronounce your name a fifth time

My heart’s not a battery

Can’t just swap it when it dies

It limps

It limps

It limps

Still drags my body through these lies

You chase perfect replication

I’m stuck with this trembling hand

Can’t copy-paste a panic attack

Can’t undo what I don’t understand

Look at your fingers

Those dirty revolutionaries

Leaving fingerprints on everything

Graffiti on coffee cups

Bus poles

Each other

Proof you were here

Proof you were wrong

Proof you were real enough to stain something

You dream of turning into data

I dream of turning into someone

Who doesn’t have to ask

“Is there still a person in there?”

Every time the screen lights your face

Flesh and error

Blood and bugs in the code (hey!)

You take for granted what keeps corroding on the road

Call and answer

I shout

You buffer and spin

You get your updates

I just grow older in my skin

Singer: Are you alive or just online?

Crowd: Just online!

Singer: Are you a body or a brand?

Crowd: Just a brand!

Singer: Who’s still here when the signal dies?

Crowd: We are

We are!

Singer: Who still hurts when the future lies?

Crowd: We are

We are! (we are!)

Here’s to the limits

To running out of breath mid-scream

To knees that quit on stair five of fifteen

To shaking hands that spill the coffee

To every scar like messy handwriting across your body

Here’s to the sunset you can’t rewind

To the last hug

To the last fight

To every goodbye that doesn’t sync across devices

Just hangs there

In your throat

Forever

Flesh and error

Blood and bugs in the code (hey!)

You take for granted what keeps corroding on the road

Call and answer

I bleed

You just log me out

You get your upgrades

I get to live and break and shout

Raise your hands if you’re still cursed enough

To feel this

Raise your hands if it hurts

Keep them up

Don’t let them

Patch us out