The Belt Not Taken
Two conveyor belts
both of which moved fast enough
on their own to be really scary
diverged in a metal fortress
and sad I had to travel either
to reach the next screen,
long I stood, looking down
the first one as far as I could
to where a bunch of metal blades
suspended from the ceiling
sliced across it laterally
on irregular time signatures,
then, looking down the other,
the way of which was more secure
for its swinging blades were fewer
and timed as to a metronome—I,
I took the conveyor belt
with way more metal blades slicing across it,
and though I took near lethal damage
trying and failing to dodge them
and all my coins fountained out of me,
on the next screen,
where this conveyor belt deposited me
on a ledge
above the belt I had not taken,
I found a chest
that contained an important upgrade
that let me absorb more damage
going forward, and keep more of my coins,
and that has made all the difference.
Portmanteaus
Money
is a portmanteau
of mummified honey.
Future
is a portmanteau
of fugly pasture.
Internet
is a portmanteau
of internalized tourniquet.
Life
is a portmanteau
of litigious cybercafé.
Hope
is a portmanteau
of hokey kaleidoscope.
Nation
is a portmanteau
of narcissistic echolocation.
Poem
is a portmanteau
of posthumous system.
Grief
is a portmanteau
of gross domestic product thief.
Us
is a portmanteau
of unabstemious mess.
Love
is a portmanteau
of logarithmic grove.
Portmanteau
is a portmanteau
of portmanteau nouveau.
