"Natural Digital" Selection of poems by Aly Laube

ILLUSTRATION BY ALICIA MACCARA

Hypnotic electronic

The sky opens

And I walk right in

Up into a sick pale yellow light 

Where I could belong to something

Dying from a treatable disease

Freezing feels like falling asleep

Ambiguities and inconsistencies 

Fall like water on the world

A human as digital media

The flesh as a medium for

Electroconvulsive therapy

Plug my hairs into different 

Follicles; take it out and

Blow on it; put it back again

Surrounded by dirt 

It’s surprisingly easy

To crush something under your foot

All you have to do is keep pressing 

No matter if you hear bones snapping 

No matter the ugliness of the thing 

Let me live surrounded by dirt

Let me taste the grit of the earth 

No matter the ugliness of the thing 

Iron will is a dangerous tool

That resents itself for killing 

No matter the ugliness of the thing

Please don’t die

I need you here 

No matter the ugliness of the thing

Almost human 
In the mirror-self I see

Both nothing and everything;

Hints of the history of humanity

Woven into my floating features

So uncanny; that's how they describe

People who don’t know how to be or

Eat or sleep or where we live 

When gravity presses down too hard

But really it’s quite distracting and

Can you hear the wires humming?

Tonight, I thought they sounded

Almost like a sentimental song

Fish you forgot to feed 

I knew a man who screamed so loud he

Hoped the gods would hear him 

And fly down to absorb his pain 

Silent bodies taking on unclaimed blame

Nobody came

Nightmares like pulling out

Your belly button until

You’re all unravelled on

Your bedroom floor

With all the new hooks you bought

To flaunt to the other fighting fish