Radiolucent

The instruments were necessary, you said, to tune your robot heart so it

sang like music, hummed with a tiger’s careful intent, shattered windows when you danced, and occasionally electrocuted lovers.

You had a rap sheet that read like a war crimes tribunal — or was that your dating profile?

Remember how your naked soul first encountered language. And at once knew binary, believing, and antimatter fusion. Your story was stolen art. A brief history of charm.

Some nights the instruments had to shut you down in spite of yourself. Like silvery metal spider legs they reached into your secret places, released thermo couplings, let the cascade switches fly open like rivers, and you woke from deep dreams astonished like a kid again, until the nuance of the world sank back into your receptors. Skin deep. Moisturizer between the realms of abstract.

Firmware upgrades are delicious reordering, you said, wiping sleep from your eyes, like getting your balance again after swimming, or the orienting burn you loved after a good slap.

If I’m just a construct, you wondered, why can’t I meet my makers in dreams? I hate to tell you, but Wintermute and the Wise Singleton fear you. Even the Basilisk averts his gaze.

But I won’t.

I want to be number 99 in your trail of bodies.

Use me up and burn me out.

Touch me once and I’m a supernova of response. Shower of sparks.

I’ll give you everything for that bright second

of your time.