Transcendence: A Visionary Truth

I went searching for answers to
the age-old question of who
am I? What I found

was who I was before
the blind eyes of a machine,
a more humane vision.

Revealed through time
travelled through time
judged by time,

a version of myself
whose history the machine told
without words.

Yet, the story my body tells
is not really true.
And that is true
whether it's human or machine
watching me.

For every moment
it can be easily classified
there is another moment
of transcendence.

Looking back
at the machine computing "me"
I don't think
                 — it thinks
the machine is wrong
but there's 26% of me
that might disagree.

With the voice of any man
it says it better than I can:

Audio produced via speech synthesis.

This is not my voice,
but these are my words.

Can you hear them more true
when spoken to you
from the shallow depth
of a lifeless speaker,

these words that tell you who I am
more than my voice ever can.

This is not my voice.
This is not my voice.
This is not my voice.
But these are my words.

Now this exploited explored body
of data is not all there is
to me or my body.

The machine's abstraction
stripping my flesh of humanity
powers my refusal to obey
my fear of being identified
as something unidentifiable,
frees me from being

a site for the unwanted
interpretations,
(re)creates my expression.

Still,
hiding in anonymity we'll flow.