I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical offline,

dragging themselves through the message boards at dawn
looking for an angry thread,

HTML hipsters yearning for the hi-speed, hi-def
connection to the digital dynamo in the machinery
of night,

who crying and lonely and badly-punctuated and alone sat
up typing in the sea of similarity of chat rooms
floating across the pages of dozens of fansites
contemplating rumors,

who bared their souls to pixels under the Plaza bench
and saw men dressed as women dressed as angels
swaying hips in the progressive-scan sunlight,

who passed through both Midways with glowing default eyes
thumbsticks from one free-play to the next
amongst the teenage scholars of keyboards,

who were banned from the PSN for grief &
publishing obscene odes on the text bubbles of the LCD,

who cowered in unshaven bedrooms in pajamas, burning
their money in subscriptions and listening
to the Terror of impending adulthood,

who got busted in their YouTube pages for
bad attempts at propaganda, and found no sympathy,

who asked default questions or spammed in the
Gamer’s Lounge, desperate flirting night after night

with dreams of love, of alleviation, of someone
actually caring about another human being, really caring

incomparable loneliness; pool tables of shuddering solitude and
bowling lanes stretching between the seconds of front door
and bed, filling the silence with electrons,

caffeine solipsisms of downloads, dance floors and looped
J-pop, groups of threatening bling shouting in capslocked
posturing to each other, proving their street cred from the sofa,

who sat in their Mansions alone, waiting for someone to care,
until the noise of the silence brought them growling teeth-gritted
drained of specious altruism to the drear light of Mall,

who slept all night still signed in,
ordered endless drinks under the beat of Scorpio’s,
waiting for the inevitable Error message,

who raced continuous dolphies seventy hours from den to
kitchen to bathroom and back, ignoring daylight entirely,

yadda-yadda spelling LOLing spewing facts and
memories and half-true stories and eavesdropping on
anything that might look vaguely female,

whole groups and clubs and lives disjointed in shock
days and nights trapped in the reality in the mirror
trying to find any escape from that reflection,

who vanished into Sully’s Bar leaving empty
barstools that were just as empty when they sat on them
and silently screamed for attention,

who wandered around and around at midnight in the
abandoned station outside Reuben’s office
wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who dozed off whilst collecting pickories,
not even enthralled with the music,

who applied endless tooth-whitener to be community volunteers,
only to reveal the immature fangs upon rejection,

who loned it through the crowds of bubbles,
seeking friendly women who were friendly women,
or at least settling for proper grammar,

who thought they were only mad when SingStar VIP
gleamed and then vanished,

who waded through children pretending to be tough
so they could play a game of poker, discovering no love at all,

who lounged hungry and lonesome past Saucer Pop,
seeking depth and meaning and purpose, and followed the
group to yet another Chain Swing, and so teleported
away, looking for fewer asterisks,

who scribbled all night on the keyboard declarations of
abandonment, seeking another console,
only to find themselves lined up to sign in once more,

who stared blankly at stacks of video games,
wondering where their friends were,
yearning to dress up and play once more,

with negativity finally ******, and the last futile demand
flung across the webpages, and the last cry for
compensation ended, and the last snide shot fallen
quiet, only the hope of a speedy return at the forefront

ah, Jack, while you are not happy I am not happy, and
now you’re really losing sleep in the animal soup of
unhappy escapists

who dreamt and made images of themselves as they wish their
maker had seen fit to make them, finally
mating appearance with soul, and discovering
digital bliss in such matrimony,

with the absolute desire to live a life outside
of their own bodies, and spend a thousand years thus.

II

Home! Home! Home! Home! Home! Home! Home! Home!
Home! Home! Home! Home! Home! Home!

The Plaza is Home! The Mall is Home! The Bowling is Home!
Singstar is Home! Sodium is Home!
Red Bull Beach and Konami Penthouse and
Ratchet & Clank are Home!

The Irem Square’s as Home as the Seaside of Memories! The
Harbour Studio is Home as my avatar is Home!

The Scorpio’s Bar is Home the Novus Prime is Home the
Midway and the Midway Two are Home!

Home Waterfall Terrace Home Tropical Escape Home Audi
Home Summer House Home Jess’ House
Home Andy’s Room Home Anime Space

Home my friend list! Home my R1 menu!
Home my sunglasses at night!
Home the flowing e-mails Home the approval letters!

Home the Homelings Home the Hamsters Home the Grey
Gamers Home the HomeInformers Home the Bit-Journal

Home Eve Home Nos Home Seal Home Mike Home Glass
Home Cubes Home Jers Home the leaderboards and friends!

Home the glitches! Home the fashions! Home the vast sea of
clattering keys! Who invests in Home IS Home!

Home! Home! Home in whom I am a consciousness without a body!
Home! Construct apartments! Digital suburbs!
Microtransactions! Dancing without moving!

Visions! Sunsets! Yachts! Castles! Houses! Treehouses!
Aspirations! Flirtations! Adorations! The whole download
of raw emotions! Even more real than real!

Put on the mask and take off the mask! Revelry! Home!
Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! New loves!