1

Overlapping Karmas
Overlapping heartbeats on a flickering laptop
Are you there are you there SOS are you there
Are you there now and forever to save my program from extinction
Ah, mystic soulmate, strange friend of Cyberland

2

Everywhere I step I am entangled in echoes echoes echoes echoes
Everywhere I stop I am flooded with programs past souls still beckoning
Past lives past loves past worlds half-travelled still open awaiting
Are you there my love are you there
Are you there now, doctor of birth and death
To pull me out of this new bloodshot encrypted dark tunnel

Mystic soulmate of this cold blue flatscreen
Send me your heiroglyph now, save me from extinction

3

Frequencies quiver in unison brainwaves melt together in megabytes
This cold blue online light is all the light we'll ever need
And Microsoft's Opening Symphony, rising to a crescendo
Our sunrise Our sunset who knows what the time ever is
Who knows how old we are, how young we will ever be
How many lives we have lived together, how many deaths we may die together
Wrapped in each others' arms atop a skyscraper bursting aflame
Now that at last, at least, we quiver together on this cold blue acrylic
screen
Our brains melted together within one Microsoft Microcosm

4

Come, my love, be my mate forever within this cosmic crypt:
Come, re-write my script, let me re-write yours anew:
Build me my new Xanadu now, Tutenkhamen:
Allow me to become your Nefertiti in cold pyramidal cyberspace,
Garland me now with your sweet Instant Message
And let me watch your sweet face unfold, mysterious,
In 600 slow kbs of e-mailed Kodakchrome

5

Touch the screen, touch the screen, make my eyes my lips come alive:
This is the first time our eyes lock tight in cyberland;
This is the first time our heartbeats meet within a laptop-flicker:

Be there for me, be there for me my love,
Save my program from extinction with just one single sweet IM
Be my Tutenkhamen my love, come live with me within my laptop

Touch the screen, touch the screen, save us both now from extinction

--- Srimati Lal
2002