plastic memory

Replaying memories that never happened.

Limit it— or it branches until the neocortex explodes.

Carpet bombing at first light, the field already burning.

Tropic thunder— a stage overhead, the world kept under.

Point and shoot, as if the story won’t aim you back.

Blinders. Vision cupped. Shelter held.

Guilt stacking. Narrative forming. The tally running.

System on system, problems moving along the supply chain.

Mechanics. Physics. Trajectory. Rocket science—

fast food delivery.

All of it machined, that’s where the money is—

mechanistics in the language, syntax and semantic riding the back of the original technology.

Learning to fly, Pink Floyd holding the line—

early afternoon panic arrives first.

The circling sky.

Unheeded, I keep navigating—

the system broken, spitting stressed, dishonest bearings.

Coms and the tower. Satellites overhead.

Data. Throughput.

The signal holds until it doesn’t—

demecanization, typos in the stream.

Demyelinated—

the signal stripped, timing collapsing mid-transmission.

What an unfortunate series of events—

I can’t even remember to forget.