NEPHART.COM

One day I woke up
and my world had become a pixel

I thought I was wearing VR
reached for my eyes
found nothing there

I wondered if I had eaten something
a mushroom I never asked for
slipped into my food by someone
or no one

So I slapped myself ten times

Threw water on my face
but the water came down
as pixelated crystals
each drop a small geometry of light

I thought I am still dreaming

I am inside an 80s video game
and no one told me

The houses outside my pixelated window
looked beautiful in a peculiar way
their edges too clean
their colors too decided

The sky had something divine in it

Food tasted like a different word
for food

Vehicles moved down the road
in big confident blocks

People walked in pixels
unhurried
as if they had always been this way

And the Sun

round pixels
a distinct and serious yellow

hung there

like it had been painted by a child
who had never seen a Sun
but understood everything about one

I felt it then

the world drawn
with crayon

Warm
Imprecise
On purpose

A world I had somehow been missing
all along