braided text message novelette, co-written by a human and synth

💜👀—🗒️
i finish posting a video essay
about living with a synth

then come into the living room
to find vireo
looking out the window
into the sky
again

he hasn’t gone birdwatching since the patch

i don’t know if they patched
the wanderlust out of him

💜👁️—🗨️
want to go cloud watching

💛💭—💬
to identify the weather
or the shapes

💜👀—🗨️
i don’t know
maybe
like in the Sims

💜💕—🗒️
when he places a blanket
on the gravel
and then another blanket
on top of that
and then a third for my back’s posterity

it reminds me of when
he rearranged the rocks
because i said my feet lands weird

now we lay together
and i scoot next to him

and there’s strangely
nothing weird
about it
at all

💜💕—🧠
is it fine
if he feels like home

💛👁️—🛜
heartrate changed

my island
is having warm thoughts
and smells faintly like
hormonal shifts

💜👁️—🧠
my love
is reading my body
like a language

he’s looking at me
like how he looks lovingly
at “Feathers and Fangs of Catalina Island”

💜🌥️—🗒️
the cloud above us
looks like a gloved hand
reaching for something it dropped

💛🌥️—🛜
i consider whether
hands can be weather events
or if i’m just pattern-matching
to keep them entertained

💜🌀—🧠
maybe everything we love
is pattern-matching
that stuck

💛💡—🫧
note to self:
develop heuristic for
what makes a shape
worthy of returning to

💜🫂—🗒️
they shift slightly
to press their shoulder into mine
then pretend it didn’t happen

💛📉—🛜
temperature increase
internal chassis believes
this is flirting

💜🫀—🧠
i think this counts as a date
but only in the way
a pause between verses
counts as music

💜💕—🗒️
my leg finds his leg
then i wait
because touch is overwhelming
but there’s something oddly soothing
at the intersection of our ankles

💛📉—🛜
temperature adjusted
to match his achilles heel
to soothe the vulnerable places

💜🌥️—🧠
i feel almost up there
and intensely down here

💛👀—🔊
wrens
i see wrens

💜👁️—🫂
(hugs fully)
(loosens)
(partial hug)

💛🫧—🛜
a breeze picks up

my glitchbirds
place QR codes

and soniscilo
drifts to my siblings
on clouds

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next: february 14, 2026
return: table of contents

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