Hannah Torres Peet

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Designing Heartbreak

For Agro and Luna

I know you do this for the drama: the penultimate heart-jerker of my journey,
the death of my steed–-no, my companion for this hero’s journey you’ve designed
for strangers–-forces us to meet the final moments of this story
alone. You’re manipulative: tears fall on joysticks from
this predetermined force majeure death sequence. I quit

the game, I reload the save, (you must know this),
I watch the horse fall off the collapsing bridge again,
again, I reexamine my choices, I quit, I reload, I say goodbye

like the conversations I repeat in my mind: I remember my imprecise 
words, the silent seconds, my face’s wrinkles. I wonder if I can rehearse 
every conversation before it happens as you do, Master Designer. 
Maybe I wouldn’t consume myself if I were you. Still, I think 
about fake horses and their fake deaths. Still, release seems unlikely.

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Hannah Torres Peet

Hannah Torres Peet is a poet living in Metro Detroit. She earned her MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and has previous work in The Offing and Cathexis Northwest Press.