He pendulated between two worlds,
always on the fine edge of transition.
Night brought amniotic dreams
that washed away the digital bonds
the day had fashioned from his thoughts.
Here was a freedom that reality detested.
Here there were no walls, only open doors
and he could freely wander his psyche
without impediments, without that voice
that was always perched on the razor’s
edge of judgment and criticism.
He knew this freedom was evanescent,
but here he was fully immersed
in each moment, certain this world
would collapse, a card house of images
carried off by the digital winds of life.
He knew this Eden would be rediscovered,
always the same, always different and this
promise guided him through the morass
that was his other life, trapped in
the devices of the digital matrix
where he would remain until all
of the networks and servers crashed
and they all were left in a nonbinary desert.

First published in The Ulu Review, November 2023
https://www.theulureview.com/louis-faber-the-other-world.html