The eerie king of metaphors takes a lingering drag
off a class "A" cigarette while he wrestles with lag
and a few good men all acting the same.
Such is the good life and a video game.

I ponder the purpose of posture alongside the aches and pains of a wounded spirit.
Quietly contemplating the consequences of the continuous killing of 
pixels that look like people
and why we crave more and even more blood and call it better graphics.
Does this change me?

The tragic truth can be summed up quickly.
No one will remember my Kill/Death Ratio in 50 years.

What are we?
(I suppose the answer to that is sought by many.)
Wannabe killing machines?
Frustrated button-mashing failures?
Lonely?

I giggle in envy, blended with a sense of paranoia, thinking the so called "real world" is only a push of a button away from the often overlooked GAME OVER.
Simple one's and zero's separate you and I from words like

"Devastating"

printed in that awful black ink that spreads itself around the world like a virus.

The warmth of friendly hands clings to the plastic of the "sticks" as we call 'em in these parts.
A short game of musical chairs after a well earned checkpoint makes it my turn...
and I am thrilled.

Blinding white light fills the screen as if the end of the tunnel sat four feet away,
a vibrating controller is like a lullaby for bachelors - 5 of us - huddled around this modern day campfire.

I'm an undercover agent.
"Remember, no Russian."  I'm instructed as my character's eyes reveal a bustling airport full of pixels that look like people...but different people.
Where are the thugs?  The terrorists with guns kidnapping politicians daughters?
Where is the gorilla throwing barrels? 

Then...cruelty.
Fictional bullets and screaming,
blood and more blood on the floor and the walls and the metal detectors and
it's like I was standing right there.
Watch pixels that look like a wounded woman crawling away and begging for her fictional life all while my non fiction friends shout 
"Oh, Fuck!  This is awesome!  Kill that bitch!"

And maybe I'm a romantic, but I'd rather be the good guy
when it's this real.
And "it's just a game" doesn't stop my heart from pounding and sinking into my stomach,
it doesn't save me from the nightmare that night,
and it most certainly does not make me a better person.

What are we?

And so I cautiously and graciously ask you...
When killing the pixels that look like innocent people is what excites the Devil in us...

How long before we're watching pixels .that look like someones daughter,
and were instructed to rape her?

All to reach the next checkpoint.