wildscape. literary journal

Waiting for Ladders
by Steph Juniper

I want to be a playwright and move people
across the stage like dolls, instead I play
The Sims and remove the ladder to the pool,

This is the closest I’ll get to God
until I die – and still He might cast me away
while deeming my sins too insurmountable,
might determine that I should have clicked yes
when the clerk-less grocery clerk asked me to
“Round Up to donate to Child Cancer Research”,

He might regard my sparse sprinkle of money
with a single casual shrug – after all, He gave me
this life and neglected to tell me how to live it–

So instead, I dry run strategies on generations
of Sims who quickly become richer and cuter than me,
who can write without a day job that drains instead of frees –
That’s why I know I am a prodigy at living
even when I’m swimming in a pool with no ladders in sight,

about the author // Steph Juniper