My Virtual Mistress Paige
I have now merged with the machines
to such an extent that I can no longer see
the seams. 16 USB ports are installed
around my neck. I have been told that from
a distance I seem to be wearing a necklace
of shells. I do not remember when these
ports were set into my nervous system
but now I am completely dependent
on them, and the textures and contours
of memory itself have changed—long term
has gone very vague and short term
has become astonishingly accurate.
I find myself capable of mnemonic feats
that frankly would have been impossible
for the non-enhanced human I was pre-merge.
*
So who is Paige? Paige was at one time a real person,
a hairdresser at the place I used to go to, but now
her reality status is a little more…nuanced.
Someone made a recording of her before her death,
a complete capture at the quantum level.
Understand me—this is a perfect replica
of the hologram of her being. The copy may
contain more information than the original.
Paige is now installed in me, which is to say
she has become code, and pulses through me
like liquid flowers from the zero time.
| Wes Civilz |
|
levelheaded: My Virtual Mistress Paige
Given how frequently we editors suffer from phantom vibration syndrome, we can understand how a fellow 2016er might feel as if they “have now merged with the machines / to such an extent that [they] can no longer see / the seams.” These opening lines focus on how the speaker’s identity is linked to technology, and yet, that very sentiment is distinctly human. Going further, the vehicle through which these feelings are expressed—written language (the “Paige”)—is also uniquely human.
The internal slant rhyme of the words “machines” and “seams” in the above-quoted lines invite us into the poem. This combination of words creates levity. That levity turns into outright silliness through the image of our speaker with “16 USB ports…installed / around [their] neck.” Further illustrating the merging of technology and nature is the idea that “from / a distance [the speaker] seem[s] to be wearing a necklace / of shells.”
In the lines “the textures and contours / of memory itself have changed,” humor quickly dissipates. We are brought to consider the serious consequences of our Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook Live-infused identities, in which “long term / has gone very vague and short term / has become astonishingly accurate.” As if the vulnerability happened upon in these lines is too 20th century, the self-conscious speaker shifts to humor again at the close of the first stanza.
A line later, tenderness returns: “Paige was at one time a real person.” This idea that the speaker’s “Virtual Mistress” was once real reinjects the poem with human emotion. If Paige was real at one time, why isn’t she real any longer?
We don’t uncover why Paige is gone, but we know that she is. We know the speaker has attempted to replace her. And we know that even if the speaker has “a perfect replica / of the hologram of her being,” what they don’t have is the real Paige. Yet, in the end, the merging of technology and personal identity results in “memory itself [having] changed.” The real and the replicated are disturbingly similar if not one and the same, “puls[ing] through [the speaker] / like liquid flowers from the zero time.”
– The Editors
