the face of the clock has cracked,

the teenager who played house gone.

time passes him by

it’s complicated to want to try to find joy

the right joy, in the pretending.

 

you know, back in my day –

he says, thinking about the childhood of inventing stories

which grew into an unwrapped copy of a Sims 2 expansion

back in my day – we tried to hide those naughty animations

the sims fondling one another underneath the sheets,

hidden in a fog

back in my day, he thinks, knowing himself to still be young,

just upended, displaced, the time spell all worn off

back in my day – we tried to forge these sprawling dynasties

and he shrugs, some part of him caught on the we tried,

even back in those days it was complicated.

 

you could have a wife, or a husband,

raise pretend children, ones that wailed, resisted,

someday they could be older and wiser and sluttier.

turning off something like ageing, it was possible then.

no need to think about death.

unless your creations were expendable.

he thinks about an urn on the mantelpiece,

an entirely fake concoction, made of pixels

and a little bit of love. sure.

becomes harder to avoid the recognition –

you’re just growing older and wearier.

kid.

​

when you’re playing house, you’re just playing,

things lose some of their weight.

motherlode a sense memory.

cheat codes like new inspiration every. single. time.

now he sits, scared, balancing the cost of things inside his head

no real-world unconditional motherlode.

the price of money stalks behind him.

the price of being desperate to live out the house, live out the fantasy.

he says – back in my day, you could pluck the life you wanted.

house in the neighbourhood – yours.

career opportunity – he takes it. a car comes for him.

fast forward through everything.

but if life were only moments…

then you’d never know you had one.

 

The Sims was released the year he was born.

parallel sprouts. they grew together.

when the fourth generation started to crumble apart,

so did he.

back in my day, he says,

I could play The Sims 3 and ignore certain things.

the fear. the anxiety, the worrying.

the future.

they were mere pixels back then.

​

- Keeley Young