Two Collaborative Poems by Danielle Rose and Bailey Grey

bootcfg /rebuild

i have to believe i am pulses counting to one / & so i imagine
the damage a pair of wire-cutters could inflict / because i have been told
the mind is a processor / & so i process myself like a sleeve of crackers
or an application that was rejected / because what is a human
but this concept of multiplication / i am not singular i am a bathhouse
a pool to wash away sin / the mechanics of archimedean displacement
as applied to the body itself / it counts & keeps counting until (

i learn a new language : the word sin must be redefined : my errors
reconciled : i bundle every permutation of particles & try to name it
god : she is the water damage when i’ve spilled out of bounds : the gentle
hum of fans : wind through wires : i can’t stop my hands from shaking
as i mend the zeroes : tame the ones : speak to the bits of life & coax them
to compile : then i sit with my own salinity : raw & achingly human) —
elevated to the vagueness of software / i saturate the concrete
 

i dream i am the mercury-atlas 9 mission

& i am circling the earth 22 times / surveying my body like a satellite / i want to peer through a tiny porthole and bid the stars to step a little closer / this capsule strapped with air & bread & a need to come home / it is the hard shell for the soft flesh i inhabit / the vacuum would boil 60% of me if given the chance / slowly tug apart my matter as i bloat & purple / because if the vacuum could speak / if it told us it was lonesome / if we decided to stay & make a new home / in nothing but circling 22 times / before crashing into the ocean / we still could not embrace / only float together in silence / because to hurtle beyond the slow gradient / our atmosphere / punched in the stomach / breathless / without speech