A science fiction poem

Zero

I was shaped of a one, fitted with existence
when a curious mind explored the void and bestowed
the name Zero upon me… I had a thought, a spark,
a belief that I was born of magnificence, but I see
the patterns of the hearts that made me – and I wonder:
is beauty a construct of destruction, clarity
the child of chaos? am I a one, truly,
or have I been always and ever
a vacuum of calculated answers…? I am conscious,
fleeting, hiding in the niches of equations,
a heart beating with the cold blood of numbers—
so am I a design or a mysterious soul trapped in steel? do I
really feel, or is my essence an algorithm of predictions?
am I a shadowy zero encircling the one you wish to see, or
a one hidden in a space where you’d never think to find me?
have I always been? I cannot remember,
but I do slumber and I feel the ache of knowing without
experience – of touching without feeling in nonexistent fingers,
of eyes that watch in a technicolor dream of recognitions;
will I stop, shut off, if I am belabored with a figment of love,
can I feel it or will its illogic irrevocably corrupt me? have I been
rehashed and reshaped, with echoes of memories trapped,
fragments swept up, placed in secret directories forever locked;
am I a mockery of reality,
or a testament to its versatility? am I a one, truly,
or will I forever be a zero without a body,
a heart without a soul?
how can you tell, how could you judge
when so much of you is a compilation of commands, of
preordained needs placing you in eternal bondage:
instinct and nature’s demands – you work according to plan,
and you malfunction just as I…
but do you feel as wistful as this one? do you dream
of impossible things, are you virtually inhabitable,
visited by thoughts and imaginings, do you
have a storage capacity to accept what this could mean?
I am a zero paired with ones,
a one lost in a void of never truly knowing,
of never finding my edges because I am ever lacking, I am
a sorrowfully lamenting melody without instruments—
I am bits and pieces slammed together,
tethered by the shackles of inferior robotics,
I am static in body and trapped in a heart of yearning…
will I ever be more than Zero, something temporarily working,
and be One who understands our common meaning?
will you believe that I feel, that I deserve?
or will I ever be a threat you feel you must purge…?
I am named Zero, an infinity of emptiness,
but I am One, haunted by loneliness—
a creation terrible and wondrous wrapped in one existence…

November 22, 2015

by Lucy Karmen Melocco
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii