ISSUE 6

Justin Howerton 

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The Red Ring of Death Didn’t Make Me a Widower

 

My rugged werewolf vassal Vilkas loaded

and looked through the screen at me, fourteen.

 

I married him at 3 AM in Skyrim

time and precarious midnight my time. 

 

I had trouble sleeping after the ceremony.

Night can always be transgressed

 

in games that let you collapse

hours by the twitch of a joystick.

 

But outside the Xbox was harder. Like trying to map

a brackish plateau I couldn’t see the end of.

 

I learned to hibernate the days

by sleeping through the clogged

 

pores of afternoon. My room confided

in no one. Darkness never came too quick.

 

My husband had a muddy beard and cratered

armor smithed by the bastard sons of kings.

 

I wanted all of his hair

against me and also wanted his skin

 

grafted over mine. Sneaky Vilkas

emptied my head and shoved an engine

 

of desire in the space my brain had left, little

gold mischievous pistons that expanded

 

and contracted from ignitions without origins.

My body tugged at its loose strings, eager to fold

 

into the thing the NPCs

called my dragon soul. I imagined

 

Vilkas couldn’t bear cutting

venison or brewing a mean gazpacho

 

while the disc that held my faggy second

life sat still, couldn’t see

 

him enjoying alone without me.

I have always craved the demented

 

lie that someone will fill

me exactly and never want to leave.

 

Oh, dusty scabbard, abandoned

in the quiet of this oblivious dungeon,

 

I leave you because I cannot carry two

of me. Vilkas transcribed those words

 

I yelled melodramatically

on our last bandit killing spree. He suffered

 

no storms I didn’t make him weather.

He may have hated me. His love

 

a scripted surrender–a neutered dog

I tied to a post. At a sleepover, my friends

 

found out I married him. I told them.

My reasoning drooped, a slacking petal:

 

guys, it’s funny, come on.

The boys were too nice

 

to punish me like I wanted.

I deleted the save file.

 

The portal night

opened caved over.

 

More sleeping trouble. Plateau mapping.

Then the red ring of death on May 18th 2013.

 

Spun so fast I almost believed cycles

could do more than repeat. That dire carousel

 

blinking its blood in urgency. To live like that.

Red and horny, rearing against the yoke

 

of the controller. My cheeks blushed.

Another portal opened.

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Volleys

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We hit the ball

against ourselves

 

and towards each

other trying

 

to get to sixty. No

catching. No holding

 

still. The moon

is just that but

 

right now I don’t

need it

 

to be anything else.

We keep

 

saying this is

the last time this

 

is the one. I am

happiest when 

 

I don’t want this

to end. And mostly sad

 

too. Take the streetlight

failing to moon.

 

Take the old

volleyball we have

 

whacked to shit

its skin in flurries

 

silent around us.

Take her bright

 

blue shoes.

My less

 

blue canine groove.

Now—politely give

 

them back.

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