Elspeth Wilson: Two Poems About The Sims

Content warning: mention of suicide

In Sims, capitalism doesn’t mean we all end up dead

There is a cheat
code that 
doesn’t require you 
to be an ass-
hole but we still don’t need 
it. We eat avocado
toast and smile 
all day. I get fat
with your love
and walk the 
black lab every 
half an hour. We
buy you that
easel and I make 
money off my
novel and I still
have time to 
pet that dog.
We finally have
that baby and I 
am not 
suicidal and
we are not
poor.

Sims as (every) bad day

I am 15 days old. I am hungry and upset. I have been an adult for four days. Someone has removed the steps to my pool. They put them back again when I started to wet myself, when I’d had to switch from breast stroke to doggy paddle. When I get out, the baby has stopped being a baby after three days. They grow up so fast that I don’t have a toddler bed. And I do not have the ability to buy one.


Elspeth Wilson (website, twitter) is a writer, researcher and facilitator who is interested in how we make the body a home. Their work has been shortlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd prize and Penguin’s Write Now programme. They can usually be found in or near the sea.

Image: The Sims press image.