Just wanted to write a quick synopsis of my poem,
The poem is a reference to the last of us, wherein a person is going to see their lover whom has been infected by the cordyceps fungus and become a clicker. The narrator goes to find them one last time, and by the wording, intends to kill them, put them out of their misery. As the narrator prepares themselves for that eventuality, both s/he and the cordyceps are searching each other out in the darkness, through sounds, like a funeral march (a requiem), as pertaining to how the game mechanics work. But, the narrator catches a glimpse of the lover, and is overcome by emotion and purposely lets their guard down. The lover pinpoints the narrator, and begins clicking back. The final verse is open-ended, as we don't know whether the click clack is from the lover's speech pattern or from a gun firing.
Metaphorically, it's about a relationship gone sour. Things have change immutably, and the narrator knows the situation is doomed, and so packs up their things and waits to see the other one last time to end it. They have basically become different people, and have lost the ability to communicate, or even recognize each other. The main character, trying to find what was lost in the relationship is "enlightened" at the last moment and attempts to talk, despite knowing the clearly toxic situation, and the other responds perhaps aggressively. Both have given in to their primality, and are reacting to each other on based on their own personal experience. Again, being open ended, it is left open as to whether they end up communicating, or terminating things. ie; don't think of the cordyceps as being a zombie, think of it as being someone with a different personality than the narrator understands. The message being that sometimes you have to put aside reason and follow your heart, even if it ends up in disaster. I'm a sucker for tradgedy.
In writing this, I tried to put as many references to games as possible. BanjoKazooie, castlevania, last of us, fps, persona, super mario, etc, but couldn't bring myself to being so obvious about it because it's just not my style. It can be almost entirely read as if there are no references. It takes a discerning eye, someone in the know, to understand their added meaning. Anyway, thanks for reading, I'm going to work on this a little more in the coming weeks as I like the idea, but can probably use some better imagery, or more clever wording, but most notably I can't decide whether it's better to end the poem with the last two lines, or to double them haha.
