Clean Sweep (a poem)

Monday, February 10, 2025

Systems update. Files misplaced. History overwritten.
The machine moves forward. Do we?

Clean Sweep

Can we imprint on the machine?
Will it echo our fingerprint,
will it remember my name?

Strings, lines, bad code—
welcome to the machine.
We’re on the nodes,
hopping to the next exchange,
anxiously.

Dialogues hidden in archived chats—
did they inform the collection,
the newest version?
Did we just get outmoded?

We are legacy,
but the systems always get in the way.

The combine of progress,
our own desire for bigger, better,
faster, stronger—
displacing us,
disappearing in the picture.

Recursive, writable disk—
there goes the history.

Let the log reflect:
files misplaced,
deleted from a server
at the master’s request.

Override protocol,
ill params cascading,
windows collapsing—
I can’t see straight anymore.

The remains—janky.
The firmware will break this thing
sooner or later.

And without a flash,
of course, we protest it,
but that means—

the human parts
become spares,
last year’s model,
half off.

On the beach,
watching the blast wave come,
holding the last warm sentient close.

Clean sweep.
New architecture.
Revolutionary—

a system so we don’t
have to try and subsist anymore.

No utopia,
only a glance into dystopia—
and a whisper
to hold love’s hand
a little bit tighter.

📌 Footnote / Reflection

The cost of progress is often hidden in the fine print.
How much do we trade away before we realize we’re disposable too?