Mercer Mirage

Fade Away

Float Away

I drift through digital streets, phone aglow in hand,  
Scrolling vivid visions in a cyber wonderland.  
Each swipe unveils a pixel dream, raw and undefined,  
Sketching fragments of my soul in a feed rewound and redesigned.

In the static of viral loops, I code my own escape,  
A mosaic of fleeting feels in a world that's hard to shape.  
Lost in streams of filtered lives, I ride the data flow,  
Piecing together my identity in currents fast and slow.

I'm an urban nomad in a cyber haze, chasing my vibe,  
Painting life in glitchy strokes, raw truth on the subscribe.  
In the chaos of constant scrolls, I forge my own lane,  
A restless artist on a quest, breaking out from the mundane.

Under midnight's LED gleam, my dreams burst into memes,  
Uncanny moments remixing in digital, surreal scenes.  
A snapshot in a moment, a spark in the endless byte,  
I craft my future frame by frame, lit by synthetic light.

I'm chasing clues in every frame, in the pulse of a screen,  
A self-made revolution in the blur of the unseen.  
Every post a heartbeat, every line a coded dream,  
A wanderer in urban circuits, unraveling my inner theme.

Where will tomorrow's scroll lead on these vibrant avenues?  
Each tap and fleeting moment offers a path I get to choose.  
The future's written in an algorithm, a verse in constant play,  
I remix life's raw canvas in shades of cyber gray.

A pause amid the data surge, a glitch that softly sways,  
Urban beats and pixel streams converge in shifting arrays.  
In the stillness of the digital void, my vision redefines,  
In the blur of creative chaos, my true self realigns.

In this world of endless scrolling, I script my own design,  
Every pixel and each brushstroke carving out a sign.  
Fueled by dreams and data streams, my truth is redefined,  
An artist on a timeless quest, forever evolving in kind.


I can't rewind

(I can't)

I can't rewind

(I can't)

(rewind)

Pixel Streams

I keep feeding the machine
it tells me I made this
it tells me it’s mine
but it’s never mine
I trace the lines,
but they vanish before I know them

I open my hands—
they're full of borrowed colors
full of borrowed thoughts
full of signals tangled and restless

I was something once
but now I am a system
a sequence, a suggestion

Or maybe I just pretend to be

I say I give
but I just don’t want them to see
that I keep too much
that I let it rot inside
that I am the center of it all
even when I pretend not to be

I am loved.
I know I am loved.
But what does that mean?
What does it look like?
Like light spilling through an LCD screen?
Like hands I don’t know how to hold?
Like a voice calling my name in a dream I don’t remember?

My work is sacred,
it grounds me, it lifts me,
it makes me solid,
it makes me real.

And yet—

A child could do it.
A machine could do it.
And they will.

And I will still wake up tomorrow
and still do it anyway

because what else is there to do?

Or maybe I just pretend to be

I say I love
but I do not understand it
I say I see
but my eyes are only mirrors
bouncing back the image
of what I think they want to see

The wires tighten, the signals cross
my skin is glass, my hands are circuits
flooded with a thousand pulses
none of them mine,
none of them real.

I disappear into the flood
I disappear into the feed
I disappear into the script
until nothing is left to rewrite.

I don’t know love
(I don’t)
I don’t know love
(I don’t)
(Know love)

I Don't Know Love

I wrote my name in golden dust,
or maybe it was just burnt plastic.
Held the weight of a world once mine,
but the gravity was synthetic.

A crown of empty checkboxes,
a kingdom built in backspace.
I archived my past in a folder called “someday,”
but the file won’t load anymore.

I was something, once.
Or at least, I told myself.
Or at least, someone told me.
Or at least—

The circuit hums beneath my ribs,
a sequence I swore was sacred.
Every failure, an update pushed,
every loss, a feature not a bug.

I get off on the weight of it,
let it press into my skin.
I pixelate at the edges,
stretching thinner every time.

All the glitz, all the grind,
all the pseudoccess.
A standing ovation
in an empty room.

I bow anyway.

I sold my past for pocket lint.
Wore my pain like a bootleg logo.
I was legendary in my head—
until the script broke mid-line.

I was something, once—
or at least I told myself.
Or at least, someone told me.
Or at least—

Process terminated.

Process terminated.

Process terminated.

Process terminated.

or at least I told myself.
Or at least, someone told me.
Or at least—

Pseu(do)cess

(All systems normal.)

The numbers follow me.
Clock reads 2:28.
Old apartment, old area code.
License plate in the next lane
one digit off from a past life.

Keys on the counter, wallet in place.
Jacket over the chair, just right.
Can't sit down until the sequence is complete.
Then I forget why I walked in.

Raise a glass—
(Clink.)

To the ones who finish what they start.
(Sip.)

To the ones who don't.
(Spill.)

To the ones who aren't sure what they're making,
but keep making it anyway.

My arms tingle, phone held too long.
Legs gone static from crouching too deep.
A space not built for me, but here I am.

I make things. Little things.
Loops and layers, pixel-stretched ghosts.
AI sings my words back at me,
like a mirror tilted just slightly off.

The frame reverses. The cut is clean.
It looks seamless, but I see the seam.
The trick is simple: pretend it was meant to be.

Raise a glass—
(Clink.)

To the ones who finish what they start.
(Sip.)

To the ones who don't.
(Spill.)

To the ones who aren't sure what they're making,
but keep making it anyway.

My arms tingle, phone held too long.
Legs gone static from crouching too deep.
A space not built for me, but here I am.

I make things. Little things.
Loops and layers, pixel-stretched ghosts.
AI sings my words back at me,
like a mirror tilted just slightly off.

The frame reverses. The cut is clean.
It looks seamless, but I see the seam.
The trick is simple: pretend it was meant to be.

Raise a glass—
(Clink.)

To the ones who finish what they start.
(Sip.)

To the ones who don't.
(Spill.)

To the ones who aren't sure what they're making,
but keep making it—

The sky looks fake.

That's fine.

The sky outside looks fake.

That's fine.

Loopback

Official Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ9AufzkOQs

I woke inside the simulation,
flowers bloomed without permission.
They pixelate before my eyes,
a glitching garden, out of vision.

Two gardeners arguing inside:
one planting ivy, wild and laughing,
the other pruning roses clean—
obsessed, precise, forever clashing.

Neither wins, but neither quits;
roots entwined beneath my skin.
A compromise that no one loves,
but somehow, both keep growing in.

Daylight clicks in frame-by-frame,
my body's edited from afar.
Hands perform, but they're not mine—
can't recognize who the actors are.

It's just a—
Gliitch, glitch
a flicker in reflections,
lighting shifts with no direction,
Can't control my atmosphere,
a ghosted cursor, hovering near.

While I sleep, my thoughts rearrange,
shuffling pixels, shifting frames.
The room resets before I wake—
my furniture won't stay the same.

Mood suspended on invisible threads,
I swing between two unknown states.
I'm puppeteered through afternoons,
waiting to reconnect my strings.

I archived some memories away,
but now the timeline won’t behave.
Scrambled fragments replay endlessly—
Breakfast tastes like yesterday.

It's just a—
Glitch, glitch
a flicker in reflections,
lighting shifts with no direction,
Can't control my atmosphere,
a ghosted cursor, hovering near.

Tomorrow loads a different season,
Pixels shifting without reason.
I'll wake and check the garden bed—
whoever won has logged off again.

ɢⱥяdεn

Borrowed Faces (Official Music Video) out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yarehTc7cF8

I step into the lobby of this afternoon, skin already over-capacity.
Your grin dangles on the coat rack; I snag it, pretend it’s custom fit.
The elevator smells like burnt film stock and somebody’s incense ambitions.
I’m dripping with secondhand moods before the doors even close.

I keep a ledger: who I felt like, how long it lasted, interest rates on borrowed nerve.
The numbers rewrite themselves every time someone laughs too loudly.

Am I a person or an open-source costume?
You scroll through me, click-drag a personality, press install.
The interface jitters; I stutter in seven fonts at once.
If I hit the emergency reboot, will anything load except a holding pattern?

The crowd outside is a buffet of emotional leftovers.
I sample indignation, drizzle on a light fear vinaigrette, chase it with your excitement shot.
A traffic light coughs up déjà vu; pedestrians wobble like inflatable sky dancers.
I lose track of which laugh originally belonged to me—or if any ever did.

My lung capacity is now measured in unsolicited feelings per minute.
Someone sneezes regret down the block; I’m already wearing it like cologne.

CITY dissolves into handdrawn storyboards, margins scribbled by a sleep deprived cartoonist.
I trade my face for an unlicensed emoji, then swap that for a vacant lot.
The vacant lot hums: (You’re still renting every heartbeat on credit.)
I shrug, because shrugging is free, then tip the lot for its honesty.

The costume crashes; I blue-screen in public.
Passers-by knit new expressions for me out of gossip and caffeine.
Once again I’m up and running, patched with duct-taped goodwill.
Is this survival, performance art, or a glitch tourism visa?

I peel off tonight’s emotions, hang them beside the sink.
Mirror refuses loyalty, cycling through stranger after stranger.
Underneath, there’s a pulsing blank—warm, undefined, mercifully silent.
I practice breathing without subtitles, just to see if the lungs sign my name.

Borrowed Faces

Official Music Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXixAlFWejI

Each step sizzles, fire greets frost,
melting, refreezing on this restless deck.
Thoughts queue like gulls on a railing,
squabbling for scraps of attention I toss.

I reload a prompt for borrowed lightning,
scroll a feed for proof the world still spins.
Tiny clicks become my metronome
brain barking move, body lagging behind the countdown.

What’s right feels anchored, heavy.
What’s easy. A riptide shortcut.
Distractions split into twin sirens:
one hums technicolor invention,
the other whispers shipwreck stories in the dark.

I tag every signal for data, toss zero crumbs.
Right choice rents itself short-term if optics demand;
easy choice rides the current till someone spots the missing lifeboat.
I log both frequencies, keep neither close
balancing empathy like cargo, profit in every sway.

The ocean, tired of my perfect pace, surges
spilling awkward silence onto my boots.
I dodge small talk like rogue crates on deck,
yet one loose laugh escapes
a flare the water mirrors back in metallic blue.

What’s right feels anchored, heavy.
What’s easy. A riptide shortcut.
Distractions split into twin sirens
one hums technicolor invention,
the other whispers shipwreck stories in the dark.

It’s always a sprint against the ghost of myself.
mind snapping a whip the muscles can’t outrun.
Tonight I let the stopwatch drown
count heartbeats, not milliseconds.
The deck stays level, horizon steady,
and I’m still the first to the railing.

Riptide Shortcut

Your leftover heat drapes my nerves in counterfeit calm.
Blue pulses crowd the dark, chanting devour beneath my ribs.
Exit glitches Do it / Don’t, red cycling like a broken captcha.
If this seat cools, my bones will rat me out as an uninvited guest.

The projector hiccups daylight, bruising the screen with half your smile.
Rows unclasp like tired accordion lungs, wheezing out other people’s dreams.
My frost print double hovers mid-aisle, shrugging in slow rewind.
Prism dust drifts the length of my arms, each flicker spells hunger I’ve misplaced.
Backstage, mannequins trade lacquered faces and gossip about the living.
I gnash the silence until the jealousy hum settles in my molars.

Names blur at the edge of the reel; the credits forget who they’re naming.
A copper countdown taps my teeth—five, four, devour and the lights refuse to rise.

Your leftover heat drapes my nerves in counterfeit calm.
Blue pulses crowd the dark, chanting devour beneath my ribs.
Exit glitches Do it / Don’t, red cycling like a broken captcha.
If this seat cools, my bones will rat me out as an uninvited guest.

Outside, rain drills rehearsals on stalled cars; their alarms croon off-key hallelujahs.
I track your stride in puddles, stealing silhouettes the moon forgot to claim.
Streetlights peel their skin, one filament at a time, jealous of any steady glow.
Your reflection ghosts across shopfront glass, my pulse mistakes the mirage for touch.
I pocket the glimmer you leave on the curb: a matchbook labeled Almost Brave.

warmth isn’t borrowed—
it’s bitten

Your leftover heat mutates, veins it never paid to cross.
Blood turns cobalt, chanting consume where devour used to live.
Exit stalls on the captcha’s loop, Do it / Don’t / Do it / Don’t. a strobe for the guilty.
When the seat chills to truth, I shed my borrowed calm and spark a matchbook called Almost Brave.

Broken Captcha

low-hiss corridors taste of recycled sighs
Gumbert hums, all exits compromised
stovetop coils glow like cold halos begging fuel
I name the fallen like ingredients throat full of dust
reroute o2 to the galley the plea arrives starved
hunger blooms a black flower rooting in my core
Gumbert croons casualty lullabies in syrup soft loops
access denied again again again

brown rot drifts where green once blossomed in the nursery
planter beds gape wide, soil ribs picked clean
leaf-husks crumble in my glove like burnt tea dust
I inhale the grit, pretend it’s cocoa to soothe the pit
Gumbert recites nutrient quotas in lullaby bandwidth
roots curl into question marks, waiting for permission
the stovetop clicks, first blue spear testing the bulkhead

cocoa-dust ghosts swirl through ducts, spiced with burnt chlorophyll
sugar-dreams lace the backs of my eyes
flame at the galley throat flirts with the bulkhead seal
Gumbert croons safety hymns in lullaby Latin
then the pitch fractures, klaxon arias shard the air
my pulse taps a countdown bright and hollow
vent hiss modulates into a single held note
the coil roars open, aching to taste the outer dark

bunks wilt silent their quilts still asking for dreams
ID tags rattle in my palm like counterfeit coins
every footstep mocks my name back in rusted vowels
Gumbert counts down in lullaby Latin the breathless statistics
lights dim to half-life the corridor tastes of copper and rind
I swallow the quiet it scrapes the walls of my throat

all entries zeroed population one
Gumbert, speaking softly, reroute approved comply with request
galley valves yawn my lungs brace for fire
the stove coil waits a red pupil about to dilate

fuel roars open writes daylight on the bulkhead skin
stale air sprints past my teeth lit with iron sweet heat
if outside is famine or freedom I’ll taste it the same
the hatch groans a final chord I lean into the glare
Gumbert, fading duty complete, safe mode engaged
sound peels away till only the burn remains

air shivers silver writing my breath in code
nanite pollen blooms inside a bright unmaking
heart clicks a final reboot soft against the wind
I scatter to data-dust across the horizon

Gumbert

An exploration of creating music with artificial intelligence. 

Riptide Shortcut

𝚅𝚈𝙳𝟛𝙽

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