---
title: After the Singularity
date: 2012-05-24
techne: :done
episteme: :fiction
---

<% poem do %>
After the Singularity  
I will wear new bodies,  
fitting shells for my mind,  
old shapes  
I have been carrying with me  
since I sat on a friend's porch  
at the age of 9,  
wishing to not be forced through changes I hated,  
wishing not to be strangled by the Blind God  
who gave me parts I never needed  
for a purpose I detest.  
  
I will float  
motionless  
in a tank of pure water  
for several lifetimes  
feeling nothing but the wind of my home town  
to cleanse myself  
of all the filth I waded through,  
so that all the dirt  
and slime  
and blood  
can finally  
be washed away  
for good.  
  
After the Singularity  
I will be reunited with people I forgot,  
our lives carefully reconstructed,  
so that I can sit with a boy  
who has merged in my head  
with all the others who showed interest,  
but now that I have time  
I can understand his attention  
and desires  
and we can be together for another summer,  
make up for the short one,  
the only one we ever got,  
and finish Mega Man together.  
  
I will unwind the life  
of the first one I ever taught,  
the one who sometimes joked  
about loving me,  
and now that I am repaired,  
adequate in his eyes,  
I can ask  
not the one he has become  
but the one he once was,  
if he meant it  
so I can have closure.  
  
I will know  
that the girl who loved me,  
who never got through high school  
but who listened to experimental music  
just so she could connect with me,  
but who I never got close to,  
never close enough,  
because no matter how often we tried  
we could not overcome the fact  
that we had different dreams  
and saw each other just as reminders  
of a better world that we deserved  
but would never have,  
now I will know  
that all those with broken souls  
have been healed  
and I will forgive myself  
for having let her down.  
  
After the Singularity  
all challenges  
will be scaled to my level  
and there will be no unreasonable  
barriers to entry,  
forcing me to decide  
which few goals  
I might only ever pursue  
and which  
I will have to leave for other lives  
just because I do not have a jet pack.  
  
I will complete  
all the unfinished stories of humanity,  
will remember the stubbornness of those who wrote poetry  
when they knew it would take millennia  
to put into words all they had to say,  
who refused to compromise  
even in the face of certain death,  
and I will write the missing books,  
knowing I can spend the life-cycles of whole stars  
chasing the perfect phrase.  
  
After the Singularity  
I will no longer  
need justifications.  
<% end %>