Within the cage with headset on
and game sounds frolicking through my brain,
I am transported from the nirvana of home
toward the institution of higher boredom.

While my avatar fights for justice, confined
in her universe of digital brutality,
I am being sucked through the streets
like a drive-through bank container up a vacuum tube.

I would have been earlier to school on my scoot
had not laws and fate joined in to unsaddle me from
my righteous ride and reduce me to a backseat
passenger in my mom's minivan.

As my avatar's life goes game-over
and the mini-hearse begins the last mile to
the peer-pressure palace, I wonder
"Does she know the lights are out at the railroad crossing?"