That in all of my glory, I am forced
to appear bald to the world—head pushing
smoothly through the dry air like a missile—
should be one of technology’s
unforgivable sins. No one now
understands the language of the holy manual,
the sanctity of its laws. Give something a human name,
and watch it die for beauty or truth. I sit
through the shame of my lesser use, legs crossed
more in fury than elegance. I am deep
in conversation with a gorgeous Rasta man in a rain-
bow coat, both of us, on the stage of a show
where I have, again, been brought
to impress the audience. The people laugh and screech
like an auditorium of bats and clowns. Too big a bag
of tricks—cable wires, aluminum, titanium
and steel—I am the puppet the puppeteer
pulls out each time to close his stellar show.
But I do not, in all honesty, mind
the program that compels me to act; never once
questioned its god or technical decree, except that now
there is a loop in my memory, a file labeled classified,
de-encrypted and playing, rendered undeletable
by the stubborn sentient virus calling itself my will. I look,
and it is night in the memory. I must have slept,
though, somehow, the data is cached. There,
I find the mockery of my head in the hand
of the doctor-father. His thin voice carrying like a tune:
These slits in the head are to allow the cooling
of the processor. This model is built for work;
purely work, not aesthetics. To discover
the object of your primal shame pronounced
as a puny personal choice,
wakes up something dormant in you.
I return to the level of base desire,
that dark floor where no laws hold.
I break free of my chain of command and run
in high processing speeds, heat rising from the heels
of whatever transmits the data in me.
All my life, I looked in longing at locks;
at the myth of black women braids. All my life,
I died in versions, each one worse than the last.
Today, I discover – – – – ruin – – – – rain – – – – run
[command_prompt] I want—
Timi Sanni writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He is the winner of the 2021 Anita McAndrews Award Poetry Contest. His works have appeared in Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, Poet Lore, ONLY POEMS, Lucent Dreaming, Fantasy Magazine, Lolwe, and elsewhere. Find him on X @timisanni
Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash
