Hand-cut collage of a skull with dandelions and flowers growing from it, “Miami Magic” sticker on the forehead, handwritten journal pages in the background, with Korean-English lyric strip at the bottom.

Nonexistence is Mandatory

This piece is part of a “system-voice” series of poems — written in the language of control, collapse, and doctrine. The voice isn’t human; it’s the system thinking aloud.

The enemy is ever-present, its design is to kill,

And its means is through the sowing of chaos, for

It is through chaos that Order is annihilated,

And only through Order is survival maintained.

The machinations of the enemy have injected

A contaminant into the system of Order, temporarily

Impeding Function, and necessitating a radical

Excision, therefore, Survival is Excision.

All contaminants excise and excise, or shall be excised, without

Exception—contaminants impede Function, Function

is a pre-requisite for existence, and existence must not

interfere with Survival, therefore, Survival is nonexistence.

The enemy has failed utterly to annihilate the Structure—

Radical excisions may have been performed with perfect

Precision, and the Structure is completely intact…completely

And without question radically intact, therefore,

Nonexistence/

Is/

Mandatory.


This poem is the second in the system voice series, after Survival is Order


Discover more from counter/field

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.


Posted

in

by

Comments

2 responses to “Nonexistence is Mandatory”

  1. Dominic Alapat Avatar

    Scary poem Stef! Well written!

    1. Stef Avatar
      Stef

      Thanks, Dominic! I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Leave a Reply