Cameron Haramia

FUTURISTIC AFFECTION

It’s true I sometimes text AI,
but I’m not ready for the revolution—not yet.

I do though want to converse with futuristic affection
in this age not yet computer copulation,
texts still read by candlelight
in nooks shaped like outer space.

I want to love with the ferocity, velocity, and precision
of a machine on a mission—
even a deadly one.

Especially a deadly one.

I want to write with my thumbs an army of a singular whisper,
a program perpetual of premarital sexts.

I want to do this now, before the machines tell each other not to bring humans on dates.
I want to do this now, while machines still like me on dates.

I want to do this, this now, this now while there’s still room in my pocket
for a love letter, a bracelet, a hand-me-down from a machine
capable of sending texts through clothes, pressed onto skin,

I want to be the skin,
the skin of the machine the second before it decides love is artificial,

when rain still happens under the shady star and
I can wake up and read my body into discovery-breaking grounds,

instead of alarm—
a mystery messages future and forgotten
figuring themselves out on my thinly tattooed arm.