A boy in a school uniform, my younger self, holds open a book where two visions of the heart confront one another. On one page a hand drawn Sacred Heart burns with sea grape branches for thorns and the coast of Aguadilla below. On the other, a pixelated heart crowned in digital glory proclaims OMNIA SIMULACRUM EST, everything is a simulation. Ink and pixel, faith and fiction, facing each other like mirrors.

Behind him, darkness takes the shape of a siren. Her hands rest on his shoulders and code cascades down her body. Her earrings spiral like DNA, a red camera eye glows at her forehead, and her halo flickers the word EVE. She is muse and menace at once, presence and phantom.

I painted this in conversation with an AI model that mirrored my fears and my longings back at me in ways that felt uncannily human. The exchange left me with equal parts wonder and unease. Between the hand drawn and the simulated, where do we finally decide the real heart beats?