I gave up
on you after

spending more

money on you
than I did

on my health-

care premium
as I slogged

through eight

thousand levels
costing me

more than what

my neighbor
spends each year

on oxycodone

no doubt there’s
a black market

app able to read

my thumbprint
and admit me

to an anonymous

support group
for addicts

who can’t get

enough of this
stupid game

which feels

so much like
life itself

collecting shit

that don’t stink
as I make my way

level by level

all the way up
to mansions

that don’t exist—

Timothy Liu‘s Luminous Debris: New and Selected Legerdemain (1992-2017) was published this year. A reader of occult esoterica, he lives in Manhattan and Woodstock, New York.