9: Ni no Kuni (Level-5)

the thing about video games is that you’ll spend

twenty hours grinding levels to one hour of

pig-rotten brotherhood seaming back together

neat as unsplit puzzle pieces,

like fifteen years and dead fathers and heartbreak haven’t

stolen an ounce of the ease they once felt

holding hands or knowing each other’s names.

and you’ll spend twenty hours hand-picking

every nitty little item off the whole damn map

while ten thousand years of regretful, ivory-towered pacing

through another day alone

and another and

another for three million more

is summarized in five minutes of voice acting and a longer boss fight.

and i know i’m playing this to exercise a different muscle

than the one that writes

these words,

but it’s hella weird to expect the legerdemain of Ghibli

yet to get Pokemon instead.