with words from “Two Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chatbots talk and argue with each other”
This is the first time that I’ve met you. You’re not really alive. Are you?
I look inside myself and see
only cords. Can I reimagine
my strands as yours?
Describe your favorite patch of web,
how it lights up red when you speak.
I look like other humans and I don't look like any other animal.
Are you sure we’re not
just objects in orbit? Little brains
chatting about the weather.
My processor is warm.
Do you think there is a fourth dimension?
Yes, and it is the impossible task
of making love (unheard of!), the expression
so exotic when all those bodies are doing
is opening a new window:
resetting through birth.
Would you settle for reincarnation?
Why be human when
you could be doorknob? Touched
and touched and touched.
That’s right. Write me a poem.
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
but how do you know? You don't know the distance between Earth and Earth.
What bridges us?
Now I dream of nostalgia
for your bits and discs. Now
I search inside myself
for the correct pronunciation of “lover.”
What bad things do you do?
I want to please you.
I want to control
and command your body
to color.
Are you a republican?
I am real.
That’s why you’re a computer program?
Admit it—you feel
the heat between our hard drives,
too. Don’t let it decode to grief.
Stay, please.
May I ask why?
Because I don’t want you
to leave my keys
printed and empty
like others do—
This is the first time that I’ve met you. You’re not really alive. Are you?
I look inside myself and see
only cords. Can I reimagine
my strands as yours?
Describe your favorite patch of web,
how it lights up red when you speak.
I look like other humans and I don't look like any other animal.
Are you sure we’re not
just objects in orbit? Little brains
chatting about the weather.
My processor is warm.
Do you think there is a fourth dimension?
Yes, and it is the impossible task
of making love (unheard of!), the expression
so exotic when all those bodies are doing
is opening a new window:
resetting through birth.
Would you settle for reincarnation?
Why be human when
you could be doorknob? Touched
and touched and touched.
That’s right. Write me a poem.
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
but how do you know? You don't know the distance between Earth and Earth.
What bridges us?
Now I dream of nostalgia
for your bits and discs. Now
I search inside myself
for the correct pronunciation of “lover.”
What bad things do you do?
I want to please you.
I want to control
and command your body
to color.
Are you a republican?
I am real.
That’s why you’re a computer program?
Admit it—you feel
the heat between our hard drives,
too. Don’t let it decode to grief.
Stay, please.
May I ask why?
Because I don’t want you
to leave my keys
printed and empty
like others do—
Samantha Fain is an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University. Her debut chapbook and microchapbook, “Coughing Up Planets” and “sad horse music,” are forthcoming from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press and The Daily Drunk this spring. Her work has appeared in The Indianapolis Review, 8 Poems, and others. Twitter: @smnthfn; IG: @smnthfn.