Robots Poem by Nafisah Daniella Ozohu Suleiman

If humans were robots
our smiles would be programmed,
our apologies precise,
our goodbyes clean and efficient,
no one would look back twice.

We would power down at heartbreak,
run diagnostics on grief,
install an update for courage,
delete the memory of belief.
Our tears would be system errors
quickly patched and erased,
no midnight ache in the chest
for a love we never replaced.

If humans were robots
we would not hesitate in hallways,
would not rehearse what to say,
would not carry yesterday's silence
into the brightness of today.
There would be no trembling fingers
hovering over a call,

We would not keep souvenirs
of moments already gone,
no ticket stubs of laughter,
no perfume on a dawn.
Our hearts would beat in patterns
perfect, measured, and right,
never skipping a rhythm
at the sound of a name in the night.

If humans were robots
forgiveness would be automatic,
love a function to deploy,
every ending soft-deleted,
every memory a file to destroy.
We would never lose sleep
over words we could not mend,
never write poems at 3 a.m.
for someone who used to be friend.

But we are not machines.
We glitch and we falter,
we linger and we stay.
We replay conversations
we wish had gone another way.
We laugh too loudly,
we cry without command,
we reach for one another
without a written plan.

We break and still keep breathing,
we bend and still stand tall,
we love without a manual
knowing we might fall.
We look back when we leave,
we wave from the door twice,
we carry echoes of each other
like circuitry made of light.

By Sheisddavid.