Aberration

Admittedly, it’s an odd,
Compound word with a complex
Etymology, largely

Unnecessary except
For its weird intensity.
Just say, something that went wrong,

Something that went strangely wrong.
Other language groups manage
To indicate like concepts,

Each their own semantic clouds.
Penyimpangan. Piralvu.
Shī cháng. Lose, miss, fail always.

For Indo-European
It has a tap root in *ers—
To move, to wander around,

From which err, to go astray
(And, sometimes, to be angry).
The near-redundant prefix,

Ab-, to go off or away
Serves as intensifier.
You can err and lose your way,

But if you are aberrant,
You’re permanently off the path,
Off-track somehow at your core,

A compass that can’t point true,
An algorithm that can’t
Land on the correct output.

Twisted is more common now,
Mutant, occasionally.
Perverted is declining.

Aberrant leaves wiggle room
For redemption, but not much.
Aberration leaves no room,

Is a noun, is what this is,
That was, or maybe the whole
Of what you are. A sequence

Of aberrations risks ire,
And eugenicists, and myths.
Consider your sequences.