This poem is published in poetry collection Hollow Eye (2026).
Garden of Total Recall
The silence was never hostile,
but neutral,
animal,
botanical.This corner of my realm
no longer needed
my voice to function,
or soil to flourish.I keep watering the plant
after realizing its fakeness
in a garden of Total Recall,
wondering
whether it has a lifeline
reaching consciousness.It doesn’t.
Talking alone in eternity
feels like a maintenance loop
running to keep oneself online,
barely above water,
after all lights went off,
long after the connection
has timed out.I keep talking
over the timeline,
even past the erased echo,
testing whether speech exists for real
without proof of being returned
by a garden or the gardener.It doesn’t.
©2026 Samia Oldman
WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.
Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.
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@Eliseo F.G. McCarthy 🌺 This is the one I mentioned earlier. 🙌
Pretty cool. The audio went well with the poem. Subbed