The Machine

Ash drifts down where the sky once burned
Your fading breath still stings my lungs
Two footprints left, then only one
The storm erased what we'd begun
Deep underground, a hum takes shape
Cold steel calling from the break

A room of wires, a vacant frame
Trade blood for light, and death for name

So I lay inside the machine
Let it strip the hurt from me
Metal threads replace my fear
Circuits fuse where veins appear
If I come back cold and clean
Will I still be me
In the machine?

The city's bones glow faint and white
Your name loops soft in static night
My nerves are rewired line by line
Bone to carbon, pulse to shine

They promise life beyond the grave
If I surrender what they save

So I give into the machine
Let it rinse my memory clean
Silver floods replace my sleep
Dreams turn sharp and quiet-deep
If I lose what I have been
Who will I become
In the machine?

I ask you through the trembling glow
Would you want the man you'd know
If half of me is forged, not grown
If all my grief is stripped to bone?

Now I rise inside the machine
Heart a muted, steady sheen
Every scar recast as code
Every loss a pathway glowed
If I outlive all we've seen
Will you still exist
In the machine?

Storm above, fire below
I stay alive
In the machine