when solutions are concessions
to a hegemonic logic, nonsense
may become a necessity
I want to be a creature
inscrutable to a computer
1 w@nt to be a code so 1nconsistent
that it’s nothing but 1ntuit1on
if a = a
and ~a = a
(because sometimes @ = a,
though others @ = @)
then there’s no way to know
what a or @ signify
and the only way to
sense their m3aning
is 2 throw two @pples into the air
knowing you will never
get them back
let’s pink slip the light fantastic
slapdash off of every last
matchmaker platform and
incongrue their mim3tic
magnet1c patterns
let’s refuse to be fractions
held together by multiple
diffuse dependencies
we’re a euplastic prec@ri@
one evolutionary step away
from the prokaryote, having
grown up in environments
made for extremophiles
because if I = I
and ~ I = I
(for instance when 1 = I,
though not when 1 = 1)
then I becomes 1 and
1 becomes indivisible
Jade Wallace (they/them) is the reviews editor for CAROUSEL, co-founder of the collaborative writing entity MA|DE, and the author of the debut poetry collection Love Is A Place But You Cannot Live There (Guernica Editions 2023) and the collaborative poetry collection ZZOO (Palimpsest Press, 2025). Keep in touch: jadewallace.ca.