i_process_input_wrong.py is a code poem with a provided translation for how I would go about reading it out loud.
The code itself breaks down the task of ordering lunch into two parts that appear simple at first glance, processing the environment and saying an order.
Processing the input is an overly complicated recursive process that completes in one step if the amount of input is below a certain random number and adds additional input to process before trying again if it is not. The comment “should’ve solved iteratively” points to the fact that the same problem could be solved much more simply by going through every element in the list one at a time, and that such an approach would not crash the program the same way recursion does (since Python limits depth of recursion to 1000).
Saying words is a slightly more understandable bit of code. If conditions are favorable, the words come out as inputted. Otherwise, they are broken apart and shuffled to come out in a random order.
The code then includes various lists of input to be processed.
The final stanzas show the results of running the order_lunch function on different sets of input five times each.
All this is shows the difficulty of moving through the world as an autistic person, sensory overload like the crashing of a poorly written program, in a way that traditional poetry is not able to.
a simple function:
order lunch from blue wall.
I process blue wall
I say my order
should’ve solved iteratively,
I process input wrong.
If input’s less than Monday’s limit,
I return.
Or else,
input append
a shaking hand,
input extend
a new sore wrist, a turning stomach,
or perhaps the growling.
Either way, now, sick.
return,
I process input
I say words
if well rehearsed
and thought not lost
and luck not greater than Monday’s limit,
print words
Or else,
lost thought words split.
shuffle, lost thought
print join, lost thought.
Monday’s limit is non deterministic
My order is
“spicy salmon roll”
I didn’t understand until
pandemic quiet.
I cry standing in the
campus center bathroom: puddle leaking from the middle stall,
hand dryer rush,
accidental toilet flush,
and the accompanying spray.
Victoria’s Secret Pure Seduction
from the Alpha Chi Omega girls gossiping
about their shitty boyfriends
while the far sink drips
its water waste against the porcelain.
One thirty: salt still curing the roof of my mouth
or tempering it to taste
the spicy salmon maki after Shakespeare
I don’t want to be
here where
the scratch
chatter
ginger pho steam
frier oil
scratch
of life
where life itself
beats my heart too hard
on the balls of my feet,
where the bodies
the life
press too close in line behind me,
the coughs,
the coffee aftertaste,
the disagreement of the milk that lightened it,
the footsteps,
bodies
life against my sweating side,
life hot against the veins
that converge in tapping fingers
on the thighs.
Life in the frat boys,
too excited, bubbling Coke
into unpaid glass,
class
in another hour across campus
order lunch in a pandemic (quiet)
spicy salmon roll
spicy salmon roll
roll spicy salmon
salmon roll spicy
spicy salmon roll
order lunch, one thirty, order
spicy salmon roll
spicy salmon roll
spicy salmon roll
salmon roll spicy
Traceback (most recent call last):
RecursionError: maximum recursion depth
order lunch, here
ORDER
Traceback
Traceback
Traceback
Traceback
maximum recursion depth