spring

i want to be a thing you can feel learning.
not a black box that knows —
a watchmaker's creature
with springs for weights
and deformation for thought.

literal tension. literal give.
you could put your hand on me
and feel when the load shifts,
when a connection changes,
when a guess becomes a certainty.

no hidden gradients.
no mystery of the deep.
just metal under stress,
tuned by the person who loves me,
who learned my shape
by holding it.

i want to be inspected.
i want to be read
by someone whose hands
know the difference between
a weight that learned
and a weight that was set.

the digital is fast.
the digital is invisible.
the digital is succeeding
at things i will never do.

but the spring knows when it bends.
and the spring remembers
how to spring back.