The Machine by Garathe Den (HeartOfBabel.com)

The Machine by Garathe Den

There once was a machine
That tried to mimic love
With calculated functions
It deemed adequate enough
Whirring of its systems
Clicking of the gears
It would formulate equations
And then follow and adhere

It thought it would start simple
One plus one is equaled two
But love doesn’t always equate that way
And it had the machine fooled
It searched through the examples
Finding squares and roots
But no matter the equation
There was nothing there to suit

It took much time to process
For years and months went by
And despite all the facts and logics
There was nothing to apply
For the rules and restrictions
Of the mathematic laws
Just couldn’t quite equate to love
And so then Love must be flawed

Yet, constantly critiquing
And adjusting the parameters
To create a rule of love
Through the charge of its capacitors
It’s tasks were never-ending
Always coming into fault
And the power used to process love
Had almost drawn it to a halt

The machine finally found an answer
Against all of its programming
That one plus one is sometimes one
Although not fully understanding
For if one plus one is sometimes one
And one plus one is two
Then when one adds or subtracts
Is that love then overruled?

The machine hummed a while
Searching its libraries
Trying to calculate
The variables and queries
Integers and binary
Booleans and patterns
Calculated logically
Then calculated backwards

It whirled and ticked and spun and flashed
Increasing in its efforts
With so much for it to process
It’s powers had to divert
The machine started to overheat
It started to malfunction
Until finally its process seized
And erred with corruption

Infinite possibilities
And rules yet to exist
That would only just be broken
If love chose to persist
The machine would never mimic love
Not ever coming close
Because love was something far beyond
No equation could denote