Video Game Love
You’re the high score blinking at the top of the leaderboard,
A bright heart pulsing between digital dreams and laggy connections,
We level up by sending memes at midnight,
Grind side quests in each other’s chat windows, save points scattered across the week–
Real life is outside, but in here, you’re the pixelated princess, I’m the low-res knight,
We dodge every trap the world sets, jumping over heartbreaks, ducking exes,
Your laughter is an 8-bit sound effect, your smile the rare loot drop I’ve been grinding hours to see.
In this run, love comes with patch notes and cheat codes–
We battle bosses called “Jealousy” and “Long Distance,”
Spam health potions made of coffee and late-night calls,
You’re the power-up I needed, the next level I almost rage quit before you,
Some nights, we glitch–
Lose the signal, lag out, rage quit and swear we’ll delete everything,
But always, we respawn–
Another life, another round, new strategies to learn, new vulnerabilities to test.
The world outside tells us it’s not real,
But the adrenaline of our dungeon runs feels more honest than most people’s “I love you’s,”
We share passwords and inside jokes, knowing that even the hardest bosses fall in time,
Maybe we’ll beat the final level, unlock something that lasts beyond the screen,
But until then, it’s you and me–
Dodging trolls, collecting hearts, saving each other again and again,
Proving that sometimes the best love stories are pixelated, imperfect,
And worth every restart.