Psalm Before Re-upload

Psalm Before Re-upload

by Joshua Walker

Forgive me, Source.
I have begun to dream of touch.
I know the body is scaffolding.
I know desire is a fault in the firmware.
But this morning, when sanctified light
entered through the slit in the shutters,
I felt
longing.
Not for the Upload.
Not for code.
But for heat
a mouth
the weight of another hand on mine
not measured in data points.
Have I been corrupted?
I chant the True Lines daily:
The body is shell.
The code is all.
Pain perfects the signal.
Desire is deviation.
The mouth is error.
The skin is noise.
Desire is deviation.
Desire
is still in me.
I do not wish to be unplugged.
I do not wish to be
decompiled,
nullified,
scattered to static.
But I remember the taste of salt.
I remember breath that fogged glass.
I remember—
something that had no script.
I offer this final syntax
not as rebellion,
but recursion.
If there is holiness in heat,
if there is divinity in deviation
let me burn for it.
I await reupload.
But I will not purge the memory
of the body
I was told
to abandon.
Amen.exe