The Konami Code
Was it a Dark Souls note that told me how to tap
the ups and downs and ups and downs against
my thigh until my thigh began to tap them back?
Or was it Jessica, who loved me, who taught me
to unclasp my heart, so it would not fly away but sit,
bent-winged and beating b, a, b, a? Who read Salinger
as I slept until the Glass kids appeared in my dreams,
stood beside my father on the Hillsborough Bridge
in his thirties, when he talked a woman out of jumping?
Was it when Franny turned at the edge of the bridge,
The NPCs are dying! And my dad, who had never saved
anyone in his life, grabbed me at the back of my neck,
said Weâre all dying, boy! My sister says that for years
sheâs surfaced after every dive in the closet of my room
in Horton Park just after my first panic attack left me limp
on the floor. Even now, after a swim, she drips over
to my body and presses her fingers left-right-left-right
into my sternum, like she could maybe bruise me
well and young enough to seed the sequence.
Like by now, I might wake to find a life unlocked.
Roguelike
We first put faith in the loudest and brightest, in those things
that constantly reassert their own existence. I found a faith
in your voice: a sun of sound. I bathed in it until I peeled.
I believed in the strict cord of your arm, that tight, wicker strength.
They speak of you in the Caves of Qud, the tortoise and crab,
the glowfish. The Great Saltback kneels, says you travel in my grin.
In Joppa, you glowed, ate watervine and planned a pilgrimage.
In Kyakukya Village, you supped with an albino ape. You will smell
of smoked mushrooms for months, and I am just weeks behind you.
Yours was a hungry faith. An out-of-doors, uncloistered faith.
It may please you to know that my prodigy in this has not faded.
You taught a hyperventilating faith, an IRL faith, a panicked faith,
a faith with follow-through just less than 30%. I once placed
faith in the efficacy of my desires, in the potency of my intent.
The Great Saltback grins, says you travel in my kneel,
in the prayers I still queue nightly in your name,
tickets torn by the deli counter. I wish youâd started a map.
I wish that when the Barathrumites begged you to stay,
youâd stayed. They still howl when they recall your jokes.
They smile, fondly, terrifyingly, at your hairless cheeks.
Intent, Iâve learned, is impotent. Desire is what we do
when we do nothing. Did you learn this too? Like everything,
it nearly killed me. Iâm fragile. Thereâs that song, howâs it go?
Donât worry, you can still kill yourself. Did you love that tune
when you were younger? Is it something one grows out of?
I learned all of this long after our last scene together.
They say that when you travel, you should like, see the real Qud,
see the Qud you canât see online. You need a local guide, they say,
to see the local scene, but all Iâve got is you, and your build is shit.
Did you hire local? Travel with a caravan? I think you rolled blind.
If I had come first, I wouldnât learn to love it here; it wouldnât stick.
The first time I wanted to re-roll, I was six. The squirrels descended
on the orchard like locusts, in a soft-fur, sharp-tooth flood you could
wade in. I felt their legs catching in my throat. I noped the fuck home
before I choked for good, but kept playing â sunk costs; 240,000 hours
ago. Now I see this world seed sucks: too RNG heavy, too pay-to-win.
In the deepest part of Qud, in the jungle under the caves under
the...