Let’s reinvent digital love, eliminate names

from our histories until we can’t search

for anything except each other.

Our avatars met at a freefall punk show,

unsanctioned sounds amplifying an atmosphere

while we moshed like pinballs among endless mist.

For dates we floated into 3D art show renders,

copyrights be damned, superimposed

our interpretations atop canvas.

We tested full-body emotes, slept inside

ethical hacker dens with tie-die collaborations

and joined a hundred causes each coding session.

We flirted between neon-clad streets, alive

with nothing but promises of impossible

futures and stained river walks

where we dropped glow bricks,

watching them brighten pessimistic

coasts and then degrade into data chum.

Our personas broke into encrypted libraries

to uncover banned Kamasutra sequels

melting into silhouettes of words

and blended watercolor sleeves.

Let’s rediscover physical love, splice

a scheme for our flesh to meet, do it all again.

---

Casey Aimer is a cyberpunk poet and editor who holds master’s degrees in both poetry and publishing. He works for a non-profit publishing science research articles and is founder of Radon Journal, an anarchist science fiction semiprozine. His poetry has been featured in Strange Horizons, Space and Time Magazine, Apparition Lit, Star*Line, and many more. An SFWA and SFPA member, his work has been a Rhysling Award finalist and Soft Star Magazine contest winner. He can be found on Bluesky @caseyaimer.bsky.social and at CaseyAimer.com.