The Bread We Eat in Dreams

Prefecture drive time radio

trills and pops

its pink rhinestone bubble tunes—

pipe that sound into my copper-riveted heart,

that softgirl/brightgirl/candygirl electrocheer gigglenoise

right down through the steelfrown tunnels of my

all-hearing head.

Best stay

out of my way

when I’ve got my groovewalk going. It’s a rhythm

you learn:

move those ironzilla legs

to the cherry-berry vanillacream sparklepop

and your pneumafuel efficiency will increase

according to the Yakihatsu formula (sigma3, 9 to the power of four)

Robots are like Mars: they need

girls.

Boys won’t do;

the memesoup is all wrong. They stomp

when they should kiss

and they’re none too keen

on having things shoved inside them.

You can’t convince them

there’s nothing kinky going on:

you can’t move the machine without IV interface

fourteen intra-optical displays

a codedump wafer like a rose petal

under the tongue,

silver tubes

wrapped around your bones.

It’s just a job.

Why do boys have to make everything

sound weird? It’s not a robot

until you put a girl inside. Sometimes

I feel like that.

A junkyard

the Company forgot to put a girl in.

I mean yeah.

My crystal fingers are laser-enabled

light comes out of me

like dawn. Bright orangecream

killpink

sizzling tangerine deathglitter. But what

does it mean? Is this really

a retirement plan?

All of us Company Girls

sitting in the Company Home

in our giant angular titanium suits

knitting tiny versions of our robot selves

playing poker with xray eyes

crushing the tea kettle with hotlilac chromium fists

every day at 3?

I get a break

every spring.

Big me

powers down

transparent highly-conductive golden eyeball

by transparent highly-conductive golden eyeball.

Little me steps out

and the plum blossoms quiver

like a frothy fuchsia baseline.

My body is

full of holes

where the junkbody metalgirl tinkid used to be

inside me inside it

and I try to go out for tea and noodles

but they only taste like crystallized cobalt-4

and faithlessness.

I feel my suit

all around me. It wants. I want. Cold scrapcode

drifts like snow behind my eyes.

I can’t understand

why no one sees the dinosaur bones

of my exo-self

dwarfing the ramen-slingers

and their steamscalded cheeks.

Maybe I go dancing

Maybe I light incense.

Maybe I fuck, maybe I get fucked.

Nothing is as big inside me

as I am

when I am inside me.

When I am big

I can run so fast

out of my skin

my feet are mighty,

flamecushioned and undeniable.

I salute with my sadgirl/hardgirl/crunchgirl

purplebolt tungsten hands

the size of cars

and Saturn tips a ring.

It hurts to be big

but everyone sees me.

When I am little

when I am just a pretty thing

and they think I am bandaged

to fit the damagedgirl fashionpop manifesto

instead of to hide my nickelplate entrance nodes

well

I can’t get out of that suit either

but it doesn’t know how to vibrate

a building under her audioglass palm

until it shatters.

I guess what I mean to say is

I’ll never have kids. Chances for promotion

are minimal and my pension

sucks. That’s ok.

After all, there is so much work

to do. Enough for forever.

And I’m so good at it.

All my sitreps shine

like so many platinum dolls.

I’m due for a morphomod soon—

I’ll be able to double over at the waist

like I’ve had something cut out of me

and fold up into a magentanosed Centauri-capable spaceship.

So I’ve got that going for me.

At least fatigue isn’t a factor. I have a steady

decalescent greengolden stream

of sourshimmer stimulants

available at the balling of my toes.

On balance, to pay for the rest

well

you’ve never felt anything

like a pearlypink ball of plasmid clingflame

releasing from your mouth

like a burst of song.

And Y Prefecture

is just so close by.

The girls and I talk.

We say:

start a dream journal.

take up ikebana.

make your own jam.

We say:

Next spring

let’s go to Australia together

look at the kangaroos.

We say:

turn up that sweet vibevox happygirl music

tap the communal PA

we’ve got a long walk ahead of us today

and at the end of it

a fire like six perfect flowers

arranged in an iron vase.