Pac-Man

15 years later the same four fucking people
doing the same shit, I say,
What does that say about us?

My brother says it means
that we know what we like.

The ghosts are chasing Pac-Man
through the maze on one
of his arcade machines.
Pac-Man never escapes that screen.
Everywhere he goes
the little dots shove
themselves down his throat.

Remember when we swam
in the laundry room? John-Ryan says.
Jake tokes up and plays
us a song he recorded, alone,
an orchestra of himself.
We want him to turn it off
but we see the dreams bleeding
from his eyes
so the song keeps looping.

Circumstance made us friends,
our mothers having
moved into the same apartment complex,
but now it seems this is our choice.
In this room we are
the truest versions of ourselves
that we've yet created.

The ghosts flash blue
and Pac-Man turns in pursuit.
I have been waiting all my life
to become myself.