I Never Played The Sims Because Being God Seems Exhausting by Brennan Sprague
I’d clay the stars glam.
I Never Played The Sims Because Being God Seems Exhausting
I barely manage to brush my teeth before sleep. I neglect to wash my face. In the harshest of mirrors pink discoloration on my left cheek. The grim reaper rapturing your dog is too much. Ghost Sims haunt burnt down houses. They abandon you. They contain free will until you determine they don’t. I did play The Movies. Acted as stylist, choosing avatars’ hairdos, premiere gowns, jewelry. I’d clay the stars glam. I’d pay for their rehab. I’d make them filthy rich. I played on sandbox mode. I didn’t want to run a studio either. I only want to run headlong into that which wounds me.
Read our interview with Poet of the Week, Brennan Sprague, in which he discusses fathers, surrealism, and the intersection of control, free will, and self-destruction. About this, he says:
“The subconscious influences all my writing; every poem is automatic writing, starting with a word or image with zero idea where the poem is swimming toward or trying to say. It’s probably what drew me to poetry in the first place. It’ll be years later that I look back and realize what the subconscious was trying to say.”
This poem reads like someone admitting, with a kind of tired honesty, that real life already asks more of them than they can manage. I love how the small details forgetting to wash your face, noticing a pink mark in the mirror make the speaker feel so real and relatable. The chaos of The Sims becomes almost too emotional, especially the idea of ghost dogs and burnt houses being “too much.” There’s something tender in choosing to style characters instead of controlling their lives, as if beauty feels safer than power. The line “I’d clay the stars glam” is playful but also a little sad, like trying to fix what can’t be fixed. And the ending lands with a quiet punch: the confession that they only want to run toward what wounds them. It turns the whole poem inward, revealing a softness beneath the humor.
I never knew the Sims were so involved. I never played because I thought that lacking a competitive goal seemed boring. They could at least include a storyline.....