Enter.
beat
It’s red.
beat
Cyber, purple, dark.
beat
And the room moves one way
beat
And the crowd obeys.
another
beat
To the mirrored ceilings down,
beat
To flickering screen of the ground,
beat
Two metallic legs beat,
Two limbs per body per cage
beat
Empty eyes
and laser beams
And mouths are welded
metal
seams…
Ice clanks against my teeth
beat
You’re pink on a metal stage
beat
Me, I say and drink
beat
For me, I seethe, For me, I
slink
My sour mouth and gin feet,
Come loose, come strobe lights,
Come
to
me.
They split your skin:
Steel sheets
beat
at the
seam
of
your neck,
The heat
beat
That must have been released,
Sweet,
To mesh with a machine
beat
A form of mind and meat
Think
of all the soldered things
Think
of cable sinew strings
Things
to power girls like these
beat
For clubs off darkened streets
beat
Where in a certain heat
We
Hu-
-mans
need to re-
-treat,
Weak,
As synthesizers bleat,
Heat
Pulls us up from our seats,
seats not far off from their feet.
Are they androids
or
Are they cheats?
The scars that trace their chests
Covered midline down with flesh
Yes
And offways on your breasts
Yes
And lips and back and ass
Yes
And all else metal mesh
Yes
A woman at her best
Yes
She’s chainmail flanks of flesh
Yes
Robotic all the rest.
Best
To sway my hips in slow sweeps,
So low her dancing cage steeps
and dips her on the stage,
Clinks
the ice inside my mouth,
Drink
I’m dancing with her now,
Link
My arm around her waist
beat
is cold to touch but hot to taste-taste-taste
(rest)
The music in this place
Seeps,
From wires in her waist
Beats
mechanical our pace,
Disillusion, and disgrace.
beat
Technology’s a place,
beat
As real as outer space,
Breeds
an automatic faith,
Breathes
a technologic craze,
Bleeds
A siliconic face
Fate’s a bound ionic place
Fates move me between her legs
Laced in circuitry I trace
Lapping helpless tongue in place,
I’m a rat inside a maze,
I’m a technical disgrace,
Electrocute me for the taste.
About the Author
Jayde Reid (they/she) is a writer from Florida living in Portland, OR in a 1950s duplex with a 10-year-old house-roaming rabbit named Ping Ping. Their work so far can be found at Waffle Fried, Witcraft, and, soon, on Instagram @jayde_reid_read where they will eventually be posting something…maybe.
