Learning the word “gate panic”
from a two-people story
about video games and how they are made
from water, and from intimacy,
from paint spilled out against strange pages
of a too-quiet play
is catching my heart in my throat.

I am always much younger when the
stories of the games begin, and I start 
off running first. 

I win. I feel the panic sooner–
of the two-person whistling
lonliness worlds,
as they intertwine and unravel
and intertwine again.

I think the inventors cannot catch up 
to me, and I cannot catch up at all.