DEMOLITION
am
playing the game
DEMOLITION
not to be confused
with the poem
or the sometime-
to-be-finished
novel
of the same name
have so far today
clocked up
millions of kills, soon
to break
my own record
expect
globally, out
in the real world,
people lining up
to get
inserted into
the game
assume the identity
of a key character
as for me, however,
being just
your run-of-the-mill
addict
could not go
so far, invest all that, make
that level of commitment
live
total fight or flight
from
shockwave
to shockwave
beyond my mental
emotional capacity
to play
dusk to dawn, dawn
to dusk
(possibly for all eternity)
from a first
person perspective
right now right now
as we hit
the last stanza
I am somewhere in my mind
playing the DEMOLITION game
This is a fascinating piece, Damien. I love the contrast you’ve built between the mundane, addictive grind of playing the game and the overwhelming, almost existential commitment of truly being in it. The way you pull back at the end to “right now right now” in the last stanza is a brilliant meta-twist—it grounds all that abstract violence in the simple, present act of playing. Very effective.
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