Love-Like
︎︎︎ Ryan D. Petersen
︎ Dec 8, 2025
From a random seed,
you and I are spawned.
Two points
in a scatter plot
of coherent noise.
The weapon’s description tells a story
we don’t read.
Our tiny world has enough context clues:
the strange bend in the blinds,
the pink stain in the bathroom tile.
In his homily
the priest names it “permadeath.”
This loss of character,
of progress itself.
Yet I know
the unknown possessions
we once carried:
bitter elixir
divine syringe
daddy’s magic ring
orange thorazine
twin humanity
Walk out of bounds
at the edge of Creation
and you fly up
with no recorded value
for your coordinates.
I rise too,
skybox be damned,
the tether between us taut
and without knots.
Ours is not a limitless state.
We are ascending.
We are falling.
The session erases itself.
But some mornings,
after dying,
I forget which arm is mine
and thank God
for my mistake.
you and I are spawned.
Two points
in a scatter plot
of coherent noise.
The weapon’s description tells a story
we don’t read.
Our tiny world has enough context clues:
the strange bend in the blinds,
the pink stain in the bathroom tile.
In his homily
the priest names it “permadeath.”
This loss of character,
of progress itself.
Yet I know
the unknown possessions
we once carried:
bitter elixir
divine syringe
daddy’s magic ring
orange thorazine
twin humanity
Walk out of bounds
at the edge of Creation
and you fly up
with no recorded value
for your coordinates.
I rise too,
skybox be damned,
the tether between us taut
and without knots.
Ours is not a limitless state.
We are ascending.
We are falling.
The session erases itself.
But some mornings,
after dying,
I forget which arm is mine
and thank God
for my mistake.