Illogical Propositions by Jade Wallace

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.