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.