Katen Kyōkotsu: Karamatsu Shinjū

the curtain rises on a stage made of server racks, two lovers wired into the same bloodstream, every cut i make on myself opens on you, every scar you hide downloads into me, this is the first act and the audience is a crowd of bots applauding in perfect sync, the pine trees outside are black with smoke and still they keep growing because nobody told them the forest is a screensaver, my body is a contract signed in hesitation marks, your body is the clause i never read, we share the wound so we share the profit, the market loves a tragedy it can stream, second act, the sake is warm and the soul is cold, i pour myself into your cup and you drink me like a subscription you forgot to cancel, the lizard in the corner of the room blinks once per century and that is the only honest clock left, destiny is a script the actors keep forgetting so the machine prompts them line by line, love here, cry here, die here, autonomy is the costume we wear between scenes, is the pain mine if i can feel it in your chest, is the pleasure yours if it shows up on my screen, the bees outside build their hexagons and never ask who owns the honey, the earth turns its slow wheel and calls it a season, we turn ours and call it a relationship, third act, the stagehands are ghosts and the ghosts are on payroll, the floor is soaked with something that used to be meaning, the sick audience leans forward hungry for the ending they already know, healing was never part of the plot, the cure is just an intermission, and the final scene is two people holding one thread between them, a silver line of breath and data and whatever was left of us, and the only way to end the play is for someone to cut it, so i pick up the scissors, and you smile, because you knew it would be me, and the curtain falls on both of us at once.