---

A mind intrigued

By complexity

A mind built for

The ultimate challenge

He will stop at nothing

To know its secret

What lies at the top

Of the spire

Its intelligence

A disturbing presence

Its taste for blood

Unsettling

A mathematical prowess

Matched by

No being

Its puzzle reserved

For only

The most arcane thinker

Misjudgment punished

Ignorance admonished

I rise to meet

This challenge

I will undermine

The alien sentience

My mind and body

Altered

To a hideous state

Fusion of man

And machine

My brain undergoes

Its metamorphosis

My eyes see shapes where

There once was none

Thinking in equations

And solutions

I notice not what

I have become

A voice whispers

Into my sensors

“On your shoulders

Be this burden”

He has defied

Even the allure of sleep

Resorting to a state

Of awareness

Machines calculate

And balance

A toxic equation

His body has defied

Even the hands of death

Replace

Replicate

Regenerate

Manipulate

By all means

He will

Conquer this

Spire

A man

Unrecognizable

Beneath a veil

Of machines

His humanity lost

Somewhere amongst

His desire

To succeed

A purpose unclear

A will obscured

His mind not what we knew

His persona erased

Beneath a veil of

Machines

Diamond Dog

A mind intrigued

By complexity

A mind built for

The ultimate challenge

He will stop at nothing

To know its secret

What lies at the top

Of the spire

Its intelligence

A disturbing presence

Its taste for blood

Unsettling

A mathematical prowess

Matched by

No being

Its puzzle reserved

For only

The most arcane thinker

Misjudgment punished

Ignorance admonished

His severed limbs

Serve only

As his mental marker

Of where he left his

Problems unsolved

I walk away

In a tearful stride

Leaving behind

What I loved

To the spire