It is I, the dead girl on display, and behold a bouquet of spectral

circuitboards and wires burst from under my teeth. Static

blooms from my skeleton and an endless fatal system error

germinates between my retinas—it husks my skin of melanin

and my eyes of sight. I am a butterfly made of microchips and

motherboards; my wings are pinned to a frame of weeds

and other death things, but it is too late—this body is the

fossil of a phoenix that has already soared away.

Therefore, dear doctors, what may the verdict be? After

all, you cannot kill what is already dead, yet you cannot

bury the undying. Even now, I feel the self abstracting into

something better: out of my ribs, cybernetic bees erect a

hive; my intestines keep a garden for vines and voxels. Dear

doctors, you may call me horrifying, but I call me beautiful;

my body will decompose into electrodes and ivy, but I will live

forever. Observe me now, degrade my memory with your

autopsy—scratch your human brains incarcerated by the

analog. When you die, I will scrub your memories off the hard

drive, shatter your legacy off the mainframe with my bare

hands. To be forgotten is to die once more; how will

it feel to die forever?

A. Wong

A. Wong is a Chinese-American student writer. Her works focus on dreams, memories, and most importantly, home depot tools. Find her studying at a nearby coffee shop, where upon closer inspection, you can tell she is not actually studying. Online, she can be found at @awongwords on Twitter, and @and.the.player.dreamed on Instagram.