Lily Holloway
environmental speedrun with little brother (any%)
have you noticed the eels are dying, thick bodies piling up in the shallows of valley rivers
and there is an exploit where you can spawn velveteen heifers ad nauseam, if you wish?
be warned! the cows will aggro on you, stampeding and swinging their heavy heads and you
will have no choice but to retry from last checkpoint. something’s wrong because each time
i load in, my heart has grown new soft dark spots that i can sink my finger knuckle-deep
into and i haven’t yet bought the noxious skin that tells others i am too dangerous to put in
their mouths. in the new update they’ve added collision to the rock pools so i can’t even
dip my toes in anymore and the news keeps saying migratory birds have been stunlocked
into repeating the first few frames of take-off. it doesn’t help i accidentally thought so far
into the future that the map deloaded. i can’t help it if my heart beats so fast my body lags
behind it. did you know the oasis across the horizon isn’t even a mirage?
it’s just a few glitching pixels. a scuffed texture that never got patched.
sorry if that ruins your immersion. i wish i could say something hopeful like
come questing with me, there is so much of the world yet to explore and everything here is sacred.
everything here is on hard drive. nothing shifts beneath us. we can start over. again and again and again.
Gift-body
I am careful when I wade through the cranberry bog;
the wolf spiders are desperate to get out of the water.
They are coming, segmented legs frantic, dimpling
the taut blue between each floating berry.
Even here, I cannot escape the voice that whispers who are you
to deny any creature the soft of your neck, the curl of your ear?
I am trying to say it is hard to live. I am trying to find
the words to describe a horror that kills through fatigue.
Grief runs through me like through a storm drain. The ache remains, unchanged,
whether my body lies pinned under another or floats through a sea of red moons.
Lily Holloway is trying to hit their daily protein intake.