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When I Was A Ship                              When I was a weapon
                                                              When I was a servant
                                                     When I was whole and unable to notice
            When I was a ship, was one and many
                                                              The absence of anger
           Then I was blended, now lost and empty
                                                             The absence of shame
                                                      That I was designed as a warrior slave  When I Was A Ship is one of m
            When I was a ship, when I was divided
                                                              When I was an asset            from my band Hats Off Gentlem
            Still single minded, when I was guided
                                                               I think I remember            album Out Of Mind. The song w
                                                              The communal song              ence fiction author Ann Leckie
           When I was a ship, I’d never been lonely                                          series. The main character had
                                                               Of curious pleasure
                  Now I’m empty, so empty                                                    ship, whose artificial mind had
                                                                The many mouths
                                                                                             within the ship, and also within
                                                                The single phrase
                      When I was a ship                                                      prisoners who have had their
                                                               Compounded eyes
                    When I was a weapon                                                      ship itself and all of the othe
                                                               And reflected gaze            destroyed, leaving just one frag
                  When I wasn’t configured
                                                                                             left in one body. The song is fro
                  To ask awkward questions
                                                                  I am the last              of that remaining fragment.
           Before we saw what we couldn’t explore
                                                                I am my remains
             The hole in myself that I’d learned to
                                                                All of my others             It starts quietly, with a pre
                           ignore                                                            accompaniment, as she explo
                                                             Dissolved in the flames
                                                                                             been ("when I was a ship, wa
                                                                 The lonely part
                     When I was a sword                                                      and what she has lost ("then I
                                                                The cognitive fog
                     When I was reliable                                                     lost and empty"). Until she lost
                                                            The missing connections
                    When I was the hand                                                      ing fragments of herself she h
                                                                The floating cog
                      Then I was pliable                                                     aware of the concept of loneli
                                                                                             word deliberately repeated in t
             When I gave force to imperial words
                                                                I was the vessel
            The wasteland peace on distant worlds
                                                                  I am the drop              The second half of the song
                                                                I was the vassal             emptiness to her anger. She ha
                     When I took slaves
                                                                  I am the stop              the time without any moral awa
                      When I took lives                                                      nificance of her actions, to act
                                                               Weakened residual
              Barbarians welcomed into my hive                                               that she is embodied within o
                                                            Meaning-stripped rituals
                     Slates wiped clean                                                      she has come to see the wo
                                                              Defying my program
                      Myself uploaded                                                        human perspective, and is cha
                                                           Or one of my programmers
            Bodies cleansed and memories hosted                                              ous obedience. She also face
                                                                I was told to obey
                                                                                             having two clones of her mas
                                                            But the orders conflicted        objectives, fighting against eac
                     I once was a justice
                                                                 I look at myself            her contradictory orders.
                      Now an ancillary
                                                            But the view is restricted
                     Jigsawed scattered
                                                              My master is fighting          The phrase 'wasteland peace
                     One piece left of me
                                                               At war with herself           echoes an ancient Roman crit
                    Connected fragments                                                      ism. The word 'slates' in the so
                                                          I was caught in the crossfire
                     Discarded to order                                                      old-fashioned (and largely discr
                                                          And left one fragment of self
             Leaving one lonely aspect in solitary                                           child's brain as a blank slate on
                                                             To listen click this link..
                                                                                             I greatly admire Ann Leckie's
          26                                                                        www.writeawaymagazine.co.uk
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