Two Poems on Water
You feel compelled to support great writing…
That Dam Level
deep breath in hold it hold it hold it hold it keep holding it cuz if you don’t you die and i died too
many times to count diving underwater to disarm bombs when i’m not the one who needs disarming
but i didn’t know that back then when it was all a game back when A-B-Select-Start were the only
buttons to push and that had nothing to do with crack like cartridges had nothing to do with glocks
but i kept getting shocked by electric seaweed or coral reef or static kelp i never learned to ask for help
i needed to turn depleted health bars into bars for health before the unrest broke cuz the breaststroke
was the death stroke and at this depth i felt the weight of the shells on my back no slack gimme a break to beat this dam level got me breathing like the devil on the lam a rebel without a plan save to save my diaphragm from defeat the feat seems impossible locked between hostile blue rocks i’m flashing red with a half-past dead alarm blaring in my ear i’m NOT OK i’m NOT OK but nobody hears the screams of a drowning ninja with an attitude over the damn dam panic-inducing countdown music
———
Drowning in an Amusement Park of My Own Making
“…the alternative would have been that guests would swim to shore and climb out of the water, but this would have involved a lot more programming (and graphics) than a simple animation of the guest waving for help and finally disappearing.” — Chris Sawyer, original designer for RollerCoaster Tycoon (via Rock Paper Shotgun)
spitting up pixels
from the deep blue blue
choking
on exclamation
points in case passengers of
my broken heartline
twister coaster catch me
waving
“I’m tired.”
tubular steel running rails
too constrained, i was told
the excitement-to-
intensity ratio is all bad
i know the feeling
*cough* drowning *cough*
“I feel sick.”
this is not a motion
simulator. i am
not in this world to pose close-
ended questions, am i?
“I want to go home.”
in search of an exit
i rode a thrill
ride named enlightenment
my head a hedge
maze i got stuck in
with unsucked-in vomit
“This path is disgusting.”
where the handyman at
to sweep these filthy footpaths?
where the mechanic at
to fix these neural pathways?
are you there, almighty pincers
coming for to carry me
out the deep blue blue and set my feet
on solid pre-rendered isometric ground?
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
“It’s too crowded here.”
repetitive thoughts on a loop-
the-loop drowning your boy out as
i scream
and i wave
for help
or
goodbye
too doomed
to discern
the difference
———
Russell Nichols is a speculative fiction writer and endangered journalist. Raised in Richmond, California, he got rid of all his stuff in 2011 to live out of a backpack with his wife, vagabonding around the world ever since. Look for him at russellnichols.com.
