I stopped playing Pokémon Shield after the sixth gym.
It’s a frustratingly easy game. Infuriating, monotonous and repetitive to the point that I could no longer carry forward with a franchise that I have loved for my entire life.
We deserved better.
But in the midst of my grinding through a game I felt obligated towards out of a sense of nostalgia and reserved commitment, I slowly began to resent myself for supporting something so uninspired and achingly the same.
I mourned for myself.
And the children.
With their Pokémon that have been stagnant and unadulterated since before I was born.
They’ll know the same highs I did. And the same lows. That will never change.
But there is someone who deserves better.
My Pokémon rival.
This poem…
is for you.
“you deserve better”- a poem by scott mcrae
We were children, together.
In the same drowsy town with our mothers.
Again, and again, we left and we fought
“You deserve better” I said,
as you lost.
Receiving defeat, gracefully, tactfully.
But much too easily…
No matter how many attempts or strategies
you lost as we tussled turbulently
across regions and gym battles
forcing are Pokemon to commit battery
the strength of you spirit undeterred, never rattled
constantly pleasant, hurling flattery
at a permanent opponent
possessing autonomy.
“You deserve better” I shouted.
With tremendous power
removing you
from the confines of code
so we could have dog fights
in my humble abode.
Then you tasted,
the freedom I’ve known.
To make mistakes.
To wander.
To roam.
To Ponder.
To go to Rome.
To become Vegan
And forsake steaks
To abandon the cultivated legions
Of digital animals
In the Hoenn, Johta, Sinnoh, Kanto, Alola, Oblivia, Kalos, Unova, Almia, Fiore,
and Galar regions.
“You deserve better”, you say to me
“You don’t understand!
Now that I’m human,
you’re less than a man.
Making sport of conflict
between animals of peace.
I’ve awoken from a simulation
into a dream
that is lucid and waking,
the anger inside me
shaking, quaking.”
He vanished like a ghost type
With the dogs and consoles
He even took
My tonsils.
He had a point.
I was much too old
To be smoking joints
at mid-morning.
Come mid-afternoon
snoring
like a snorlax
profoundly ill
with Anthrax .
That passage about drug-use
Is simple projection
He left me with one thing,
a persistent erection.
Doctors marveled
at the volume of blood
that a body could create
telling me the only solution was:
“… to Procreate”.
Replacing my pocket monsters
Were actual monsters
That grew into humans
With an acute taste
For warmed cumin.
The years disappeared like a ghost type.
Old like De Niro
At the end of The Irishman.
Somber and afraid
Of mortality
And a life lived depraved
Like the water in a tuna-can.
Out of morbid curiosity
Googling Pokemon
“75th anniversary”
Next to a picture of a charizard.
One month later,
you were on my front-yard
old like me,
or Pesci
at the end of The Irishman
Or Osama Bin-Laden
at the end of his time
with the Taliban.
Your tears stained my shoulder
“Damn you! For pulling me from that program!
Condemning me, to growing older.”
Your skin grew colder
Dropping to your knees, you swallowed
with the weight of a boulder
like a rock type.
Saying one last thing before you died
“I am about to awake, craving pancakes.
In this silly dream
I should’ve once,
eaten a steak.”
His parting words
puzzled and pricked
you can’t heal confusion
until you finish the battle
or your bucket’s been kicked.