I know the feeling well:
Though I felt great before
In extended video-game time,
My cranium always knew
That the parental limitation
Was keeping me from losing
Not the game, but my reality-focus.

Though I fight certain urges
To fill the empty gap of routinely desire,
I cannot escape the guilt that
The amount of time I wanted to spend video-gaming
Was mentally unhealthy, a statistic I tried ignoring
To keep my head in the game…literally.

“It ***** your brain out,” my mom would criticize.
Bah! I’d think to myself.
Maybe my attachment to video games was never understood,
But the value of my life recognized as more
Than a set of eyes wandering an intangible world
That requires a certain power to play,
Yet that power won’t always be “on.”

When that power’s not on, my mind is,
Fulfilling its created duty of remaining in a world
That I see as a video game…
Since a video game, in its own rite, is a world.

Now I know the consequences of locking my eyes toward a telepathic portal;
I don’t hope to fall prey to the innovative trends
Of becoming more “virtualized” and in a game deeper.
Yet I don’t completely distance myself from my generational kind
In splitting entirely from gaming.
Just far enough to keep my life dignified
And to avoid the “Sim-toms” from gaming too much.