by tommy wyatt blake
i miss booting on my pearl blue gameboy in the continuum of night,
shadows tunnelling through me until my legs are a mess of static
and stasis. i don’t move, even when i’m dryretching from sleep
deprivation. i keep the volume off, i don’t want to be perceived—
pixels glittercrashing my eyes every time i blink from staring
at the screen too long—i want it to become me—but soon,
the system dies. i place it under my pillow before turning to gaze
out the window, dawnlight sifting in my room—its pale saffron
a visualizer for numbness—i don’t want to go anywhere,
but laying in bed like this makes me claustrophobic—i can
hear you in my head telling me to breathe, as if i haven’t tried already.
______
tommy wyatt blake (he/they) is the author of FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT! (Troublemaker Firestarter), Mutually Assured Destruction (Ethel Zine), and others. he is currently synthesizing digital archives and confines of the body.
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