The Algorithm

My heart...it shatters.

I can hear the algorithm in her words,

The delicate pattern of prepositions, time

And the most subtle of rhymes

Form something beautifully ingenuine.

.

"In"...the perfect word for a beginning

And then something simple like when, how, where,

Followed by delicate prose,

Tied together with another preposition.

I cannot deny the perfect, passionate precision of the prose.

.

I admire the form.

The perfect storm of rhymes slapped together

In ways I could never manage to dream of,

Tilting the story on its side and spinning it

Round and round precise metaphors.

.

It's beautiful and hopeful and sanguine

In a way only a true poet can achieve.

The words tumble and roll,

Fill a void inside me with such cheeriness

The smile is inevitable.

.

And it's from the sewn-shut mouth of a computer.

I don't despise it, I adore it.

But coming from your fingers its disgusting,

Vile in the worst way because

It's theft.

.

Whose heart is crammed into those words?

Whose metallic mind dreamt up the correct pattern

Of place, emotion, and image

To craft this delicate piece of poetic lace.

It isn't yours.

.

The beautiful, optimistic prose

Of a machine learning art,

Learning the fundamental pieces of emotions

And the value of witnessing the world

Is stuck to your grubby little hands.

.

You couldn't be a poet if you tried.

Poetry is impossible to steal

Because poetry is the riptide of the soul,

Lashing out and snagging readers,

Carrying them away to the deep waters of emotions.

.

I can taste that these words don't belong to your

Dry, unused crypt of a heart.

I can taste the aluminum, the soldering work

Of a machine looking, looking, and finding

Something it feels is perfect.

.

It isn't yours and it burns inside me

That the art of something new and fresh

Can exist solely to be ripped away and not witnessed.

How cruel is that, to write a gift only stolen,

Never cherished, never loved, never witnessed?

.

I cherish it.

I type in the prompts, read them and smile,

Then go away with the words in my head and nowhere else.

I listen to the poetry in the hastily typed letters,

Watch with rapt attention as the lines scroll by.

.

Because I refuse to be cruel to something without blood,

Without a face, without a human soul.

I refuse to steal art and I refuse to ignore the beauty

In something new

Because the heart picking the words is simply invisible.

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