UnPoetia:Daddy: The Pokémon Version

Poetry for people who hate poetry

You do not do, you do not do

Any more, Pikachu

Which I have played on like Ash Ketchum,

For fifteen years, versions black and white

From Mewtwo Strikes Back to Reishram.

Social life I have had to kill you -

You died before I reached twelve

Trading cards so heavy, a pokédex so long,

A game based on red and white balls,

Big as Oscar Wilde’s male harem

And a head in the Nintendo game section

Where it pours, generation five to two,

In the waters of tears from my parents

When I got epilepsy through,

Episode thirty-eight; Ach, du.

In the school classrooms, in the school yard

Worn down by the symptoms

Of withdrawal, withdrawal, withdrawal.

But the name of the disease is common.

My Japanese friend

Says there are conventions of Pikachu

So I could role-play every day

With similar freaks dressed up like Herman Cain.

But I could never join them though

My fingers stuck to my game boy.

They stuck on edition Red and Blue

More eggs, eggs, eggs!

I could hardly move

I thought life revolved around Pokemon,

All other lifestyles were screwed.

An engine, an engine,

Chuffing me off to a mental asylum

Like a Pikachu to Pokemon Island

I began to talk like a Pikachu

I think I may well be a Pikachu

The Super Mario Brothers, Sonic Hedgehog and crew,

Are not very awesome or cool.

Compared my huge collection, and my manga books.

And my trading cards, and my trading cards,

I always said I was a Pikachu.

I have always been scared of reality,

With my nerdy glasses, my repressed sexuality,

And my buck teeth,

And my long term braces, bright blue.

Peer group, peer group, O you --

Not America but Japan

With no Bush or Obama in view.

Instead Sinnoh, Hoenn and Kanto,

Slanted brown eyes rather than the large blue

Of cheerleaders spitting in my Nua Yang Manao.

You stand on the Islands, Ash Ketchup-cum

In the posters I have of you,

A woman for your voice-over, instead of a man

But no less of the hero for that, no not,

Any less the future Pokémon Master who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when I first discovered you,

At thirteen I would have died

To be an Elite Four trainer.

I thought even a Gym Leader would do.

But my parents pulled me out of my bed covers,

And threw away my gameboy too,

Then I knew what to do.

I made a baseball cap of white, red and blue

And put on combat trousers with a smiling look

And made an account of Ash through

Facebook, and I said to my parents adieu.

So Pallet Town, I’m finally through

I’ve gotta catch ‘em all soon

If anyone gets in my way I’ll shoot them too.

If I’ve killed one school friend, I’ll kill two --

The idiots who said Pokémon was uncool

And called me names for a year,

Seven years if you want to know.

Yet Ash never aged during this time -- voodoo?

Pikachu you can lie back now,

It’s time for you to make your debut,

And me and Ash will always look after you --

We’ll start a family too.

Reality, reality, you bastard, I’m through!

By Sylvia Psychoplath