the ballad of arden and edward

I cannot afford another scientist--

the experiments are too messy, the solutions too cold

and I refuse to be data for a hypothesis that would make Machiavelli cringe in envy.

My scientist wore no lab coat, carried no clipboard,

not a microscope in sight,

but he collected and calculated all the same like the rest of his kind, 

his mechanical heart full of vicious truth

that held no shame for the flesh he tore--

my flesh, my heart--

just another variable for the sake of science. 

It started when my scientist saved me from my fall--

he gave me wine, he gave me his bed

and I came to him to be won like the child I was. 

I never knew he was infected with something cruel,

something inside, a delusion and a eulogy left unsung,

a Goddess on the other end of a screen waiting to refuse him.

And so I became a variable-- naive, still thoughtful, 

ignorant of the whole process as he pulled on his gloves

and set out his vials

and strove to replace the colors of her with my bright eyes.

The conversions nearly killed us all and left us as shells;
he was reduced to his Draconian methods,

I was reduced to my misrepresentations,

she was reduced to all that was leftover in me.

With that, we began our sick trade:

I bartered for his sex

the way he bartered for my liquor

the way she bartered for his money

and bartered for my fears

and at the end of the night when we had finished 

with all our bartering and thieving 

and had haggled ourselves down to our crude prices,

I was the only one left in the room with less than I came in with.

He recorded his observations and revised his theory

and asked me to leave in no uncertain terms,

concluding that I was nothing more to him 

than a malfunctioning prototype, unable to fulfill my programming

and so I was disposed of.

I left with $1.72 in my wallet

and a criminal love in my worthless heart

and a cigarette in my mouth. 

I stood proud on my outside while I hunched on my inside,

striving to put my broken pieces back together

and recovered only by telling myself that I was better than such things:

above experiments, above my programming, 

above conversions and data and hypotheses.

I recited ethics and found superiority in my morals,

proclaiming myself fortunate to have escaped such a fate

as to be in love with a scientist

but gather round, my lovelies, and let me tell you a secret

that I will not share so lightly:

not only has my heart grown cogs and gears of its' own,

but I have found that science is contagious

and that calculations are addictive,

that conscience is unreliable 

and that variables are vital to my functions.

I have escaped my programming

only to see the world through my own microscope.

I cannot afford another scientist

for this lab can hold only one.