Tetris | Erin Cisney

When she died, I was playing Tetris on a GameBoy in a cabin in the woods. The GameBoy was new, it was a birthday present, it was by far the coolest thing I had ever owned.

Tetris makes you feel like an accountant, a very efficient and self-satisfied accountant that sincerely loves being an accountant.  If I were an accountant now, I think I would be happy but probably not.  Jobs are not very satisfying.

I sometimes develop sentimental attachments to inanimate objects like my car, like certain pieces of silverware, like video games.  Sometimes I imagine the multiverse.  Me.  You.  Infinity.  Etc.  I’ve inherited more spoons than I know what to do with. 

I miss video games.  I miss hours vanishing into the ether, the uncomplicated sureness of a job well done, the black hole of a tv screen at 2AM.  Here are some words. Rearrange them and you’ll discover a requiem for the 20th century and my soul laid bare.

Spoons. I inherited so many spoons, I wrap bundles of them in rubber bands and keep them in the unreachable dark corners of my kitchen cabinets. 

Erin Cisney is a poet from Lancaster, Pennsylvania who’s work has appeared in such places as Spry Lit Journal, rust & moth and Literary Orphans, among others. Her first collection of poetry, Anatomy Museum, was released in Jan 2020 by Unsolicited Press. Twitter: @erin_cisney