Content warning: mention of depression
This video game is no longer new but I love it
I play it every day and it feels like going outside
It feels like swimming in the sea and disguising my gender and biting with fangs
I read some poetry that was published just 2 years before
the video game was released and it already feels quaint
The way the poet writes about tweeting like a new toy
The poet tells me about her depression but I can’t imagine
it’s as strong as my desire for it to be five years ago
I wonder if she played this video game 2 years after she wrote these poems
and tweeted about the game when it was brand new
I play alone and can only converse with the jewel-bright dragons that glide over my head in the game-sky
and the wolves running through canyons and monsters in coats of dark metal
bright shiny tweets rust over in my popcorn-oiled fingers
The player character is younger than I am but looks like a boy
He is sad and free and carries a luminous sword through a world where almost everything glows
It feels like explaining to a child
it’s the white light that falls on you when you’re asleep and I’m awake and
I check my phone in the circus tent under the duvet.
Now they have sealed springtime like a clay pot in an oven.
I am still in love with being this boy
Ariane Parry (website, instagram) is a Welsh writer. Her poetry has appeared in Lighthouse and adjacent pineapple and her film Any Time/Any Place was a finalist in the 2018 Funny Women Short Film Awards. She is currently working on her MA in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia.