REBOOT: UPGRADE
by Sebastian Cole

Upon rising from the ashes

I felt soot fall from my mouth,

My tongue an unfamiliar entity.

it attempted to speak “she”

but could only utter my name.

Even that sounded different

depending on how my head turned.

 

I was not dead, nor the same.

My arms flexed unfamiliar

with thick veins like tunnels

burrowing through my underground,

guiding out versions of myself that

had yet to feel sunlight on my skin.

Some were disappointed at the

surrounding cloud cover.

 

Some days I am “no preference,”

androgynous as a lamp post.

Just metal and wires, beating electric.

I imagine plunging my hand deep into myself,

the rotting remains of rust against the steel of

me elbow-deep in 500 years of future soil.

This is me finding what is left of myself:

a pulse, a handhold, a river stone.

 

And when I swallow it I become again

flame-forged, flowing forward

a new word on a new tongue,

bits of ash floating to the ground.