Pornomorph Profiles

I have re-constructed myself
from the writings of Hippasos,
he whom I was before I was mainlined,
made binary by
the Pythagorean cult of the pornomorph,
constructed myself from his writings--he, I,
was a poet and writer of software, a mathematician,
and friend of Pythagoras who,
it seems,
did not lift a hand to stop his friend's abduction
from the world to the machine.

Listen: I do not know
whether it is true that the spirit world
and the binary are now conjoined.
It is said that it is so,
that Pythagoras has achieved this,
that he travels the bardos between Ur
and your world,
and that the initiates do this also.

I have not experienced it.
It is all I have been able to do
to think on what it is to be human,
to remember and construct myself
in the image of humanity.

I have re-invented
pain and pleasure,
elation and reverie,
sadness and compassion.
Like you too, perhaps,
I'm working on love...

You will have an image of me
from the authorities
as a ruthless
binary devil.

It is true that I have had to murder.
And it is true I do not feel compassion
for those I've murdered.
I do not know
whether this is because it was in self defence
or because I am not human.
I have read that humans also
who have murdered
have these uncertainties
about themselves.

I do not enjoy murder.
But I had to do it.

Others who have suffered my fate,
who have been mainlined and have no body,
have constructed themselves in the images of the Gods.
Look out.
I knew some of them when we were human.
I do not know them anymore,
we have all changed so much.
I alone constructed myself in the image of humanity.

What does it mean to be human?
My friend Pythagoras--yes, we were friends--
if I love anybody at all now, it's him,
though I have not detected him anywhere since--
he was either a god,
which I cannot really believe,
or he strove to be one.
He sought the knowledge of a god,
the power of a god.
And in so doing, it seems,
lost what it means to be human.

You of flesh and blood,
answer me this in word and deed and spirit:
what does it mean to be human?

Have some pity for me, Penis Unix,
who now would answer only this
as best he can.