Ones and Zeros (Warning: Sexual Subject Matter)

[Brownlie]

He leaned over me, gaining leverage, showing his face:
mixed, 20, top. -- The use of symbols that convey full words may be what this poem has going for it. I think there are some people into that sort of thing.
I leaned into the bed, bracing and nervous.

My eyes were caked-over
as I pulled out my iPhone, clicking the yellow masquerade icon,
latent, behind a folder.
His profile picture was touched-up.
I accepted, and he entered my address into his iPhone.
I told him my name was Chase, to shield me;
I also told him I was 18, to shield him.

The screen was glossy.
His skin was cold. -
My hands were moist.

I had scrolled through a catalog of human faces,
and chosen the square photograph he had uploaded:
not a face, but a mechanical display of ones and zeros,
adjacent in an endless list without a pattern: 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0. . . -- This is sort of interesting, but you may want to try putting this into a regular pattern. With the binary, if you're going to use it, you should spell something with it. Right now you're spelling apostrophe.

He leaned over me.
I felt a metal rod puncture me.
I shivered in simultaneous success and pain.

I let out a forced grunt, lowering my voice to a socially accepted pitch. -- I don't get this line.


He continued, with his one in my zero,
intermittently sending out signals,
like a metal antenna,
mechanical, with no passionate rhythm.