Poem in which I starve off the midwinter using Wii Sports Resort

after Christian Butterfield

because we don’t get to do hawaii winters like my classmates do and I

get reminded of the cold by the whirring of steel panel radiators
muzzled on the edge of chip-toothed drywall. don’t get me wrong, I am warm
enough. but I talk about how before next winter I will escape like a migrating sparrow
and graze the sun with gillnets. but through a fable I learn the birds who don’t fly
south over the winter freeze and wither. so I migrate to the dining room and unfurl
the curtains of the rear projection TV instead. I grab a copy of Wii Sports Resort
and zip-tie it onto my wrist. on wuhu island, it is always midsummer —
adobe villas, cicada-strewn. I ditch my hot cocoa for lukewarm lemonade.
I board virtual airplanes and do flyover mode to see the island in whole.
I fly wayward; I like to think that I can forget myself if I fly high enough.
in the subzeroes, the best I can do is escape and build miis that remind me
of lost friends and slash away the wintertime; my wii remote is my only chance
at creation. I fasten the windows and shut my blinds, only leaving
on the TV so that my window faces wuhu island because wuhu island
has souvenir shop sunshine, never cold.
Patch Notes 02.2021
New Features
❏ added more options for backstory customization
❏ the player can now choose to forget their backstory
❏ cutscenes can now be played via nostalgia mode if the player possesses the item
‘rose-coloured glasses’
❏ some memories may be spontaneously removed
❏ further developed the luck stat
❏ the luck stat changes each in-game day to show the unpredictability of life
❏ the luck stat cannot be altered manually with the use of in-game items
❏ the luck stat now affects the rest of the player’s starting stats more drastically
❏ the player now has the option of rejecting the prophecy and may instead take on a 9-to-5
job

Removals + Bug Fixes

❏ removed suburbs for a more other-worldly experience
❏ removed ghosts
❏ removed ghosts of the player’s imagination
❏ removed ghosts of the player’s past
❏ removed the ability for dead characters to revive
❏ removed haunting music that plays in the background upon ghostly encounters
❏ removed the glitch that allows the player to step out of their skin when attempting to step
out of their pyjamas
❏ removed NPC dialogues featuring metaphors and similes comparing the player to
onions or lizards or centipedes and other entities that shed their skin
❏ further balanced player strength
❏ fixed the glitch where players could chop metal like they chop vegetables
❏ players can now drown in puddles
❏ fixed the habit where the player looks towards the distance and tries to return home, not
knowing where home is

In-Progress*
❏ features that would allow the player to control time
❏ game mode in which characters do not die

* In-progress features are experimental and there is no guarantee that they will be featured as part of future updates