Super Pattern Recognition
The world’s leading psychiatrist
sat beneath fluorescent light
with a legal pad full of storms
and said:
There are people
who notice too much.
Not intelligence alone—
no, intelligence is cheap now,
diploma mills
sold by universities and politicians
like cigarettes once were.
I mean the curse
of seeing the machine move
behind the curtain.
A twitch before betrayal.
A smile with murder hiding in its gums.
The way a woman says “fine”
while sharpening emotional knives in silence.
The way a cop touches his belt
before deciding who is guilty.
The way crowds repeat lies
until lies grow bones and begin voting.
Super pattern recognition.
The brain becomes a prison guard
watching every shadow for fingerprints.
You notice repetitions.
Abusers with different faces
but identical appetites.
Friends who become enemies
using the exact same sentences
as the last ones.
History wearing fake mustaches
pretending it has changed.
Soon sleep becomes impossible.
Because once a man sees the pattern
he cannot return
to ordinary blindness.
The psychiatrist lit a cigarette
he was not allowed to smoke
and stared through the hospital window
at the city twitching below.
“Most people survive,” he said,
“by ignoring connections.”
But some people—
the wounded ones,
the hypervigilant,
the ones forged in chaos—
their minds become radar.
They can hear tension
before voices rise.
Can smell manipulation
like rain before thunder.
Can predict abandonment
three conversations early.
It is more useful in war.
Terrible for love.
Because eventually
they stop asking
whether danger is present
and begin assuming
it always is.
That is when pattern recognition
becomes prophecy.
And prophecy
becomes loneliness.
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