because I haven’t played in years but I still know Blastoise 
can fuck you up. In synagogue hallways full of steam-
shirted, kippahed boys, this was our language.

We all knew we could evolve into the power to flood
the world. We’d greet each other with our favorite monsters,
asking: what do you want 

to become? What weapons will you make from your body?
We slid cards across the marble and when our fathers left 
the sanctuary we each had an answer. I prayed mine wasn’t final.

You don’t subscribe to that gender stuff 
but you didn’t watch me graduate from 8-bit shuffles 
into full-color shimmers. My first Shabbat in a decade,

clothed in twilight, I fused my whisper to the full-throated
blessings and wept. Gone: the childhood urge to sneak
into the tall grass. Gone: the will to grind myself into strength.

I had found a rare candy, a way to level up without anger. Still, I want 
to battle you. I want you confused. To hurt yourself
in your confusion. To be frozen, paralyzed, poisoned.

I want you to faint in a single hit. 
I want my badge of victory. I’ll become shiny, then:
lavender limbs and a moss green shell
to cover my back from the eyes of God.