Lag
Lag, lag, lag.
All I want to do
is relax and make
myself acquainted
with my new friends
by shooting
them in the
head with a Spartan
laser, but
lag, lag, lag.
Time cuts, I retrace my steps
involuntarily, a jerking
motion pulls me back three
seconds ago, flipping over
myself— I snap
here. Wait.
Why am I here?
Why did I edge myself
across a valley, in a valley,
hurdling my rag-doll body,
flopping mechanically
toward a vagrant patch
of nowhere?
Why am I limp,
tossed toward regret
and a slow respawn
in the line of fire?
Lag, lag, lag.
Head shot picked, sniper
locked in a crosshair, a crosshatched
twine of ephemeral yellow sputters
through the sky, and
I'm waiting, waiting— what
am
I
waiting
for?
What is going on? Why
did time elapse,
fluttering punctures slathering through
the glass frame protecting
my eyes—
shard sight
clattering down
like crystal rain
on the embers of
this soul's
cursory,
concocted
ewer?
Lag, lag, lag.
Death is not my fault.
A decent connection
could not be established
to save my life.
Faulty servers
prognosticate my failures,
and, though they are
synthetic—the pain,
artificial, fake as the
celebrations, but not
the dopamine rush—
I cannot help
the seething anguish,
the malevolent
mood-switch harbored
by such of harbingers of
simulated evisceration—
false body vaporization,
phoenix rise to exenteration,
full mental dilapidation:
mind, soul, body plugged
into the essence of unsent
spirits slain in
the wargames,
the bloodsports,
the volleys of this terminus's
animal demarcations.
Splattered overshields
of confidence,
then loathing,
then time wasted,
and now I've got a headache.
Lag, lag, lag.
poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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