Michael Russell (he/they) is the queer, mad mother monster behind two chapbooks, gallery of heartache (forthcoming from 845 Press) and Grindr Opera (Frog Hollow Press). They are the coauthor of chapbook Split Jawed with Elena Bentley (forthcoming from Collusion Books). As always, he thinks you’re fantabulous.
“isekai centers around the loose isekai anime of Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. It pulls references from the show, including but not limited to how it treats its female characters, the god-like centering of the protagonist, the character of Ghost Girl, and her chosen archetype in the anime called Altergeist. The poem parallels this with my experiences in an isolated and wilting relationship. Altergeists, as mentioned in the poem, are a combination of ghost and goddess-like creatures combined with computer-based components.
“As well as references to Yu-Gi-Oh!, the card game and the isekai genre, my poem leans into the tricky trap-like playstyle of the Altergeist archetype and Ghost Girl’s ‘backdoor’ hacker characterization throughout the show. It sneaks in a distorted found ‘poem’ in stanza 5 by shuffling and remixing different iterations of lines from drafts of my Yu-Gi-Oh! poem “lunalight” originally published in Impossible Archetype (Issue 9). I do this again in stanza 6, where the found poem is more integrated into isekai’s house style. This time, it also pulls and shuffles lines from my Yu-Gi-Oh! poem ‘// hold //’ originally published in Anti-lang (Issue 10: emergence).
8:00PM
pathetic you hovering
above the cracked black phone
screen fingers scrolling
for cerulean spark buzz
of wanting his words emoji
a response please
you slide your yugioh cards across the desk
think how convenient
to lose yourself
in trading cards trade one monster
for another imagine that
you a yugioh girl
sucked into the flimsy crust
of mass produced cardboard
here your man
the protagonist
of course his feelings
the gooey center
of this story yours oozing
like excess filler
no matter
how grand
you monster
& trap
this story
will never see you
as more
than plot
device
your purpose
to build
& break
his character
a hero
how convenient to lose yourself
in trading cards altergeist
malwisp multifaker marionetter
imagine that each monster
a haunted network ghost
goddess virus poltergeist
lag i- magine
that your boyfriend vanishes
in his work
computer & he’s charmed
a hero you a ghost girl altergeist
adminia hexstia memory
-gant revitalizes memory
with lunalight
neuropathways spark with lunalight
blue cat kaleido chick black sheep
& yellow marten thread his favourite
jacket blue black it takes a moment
to find the wildness in your reflection
lunalight cat dancer panther leo the lion
traces the hydro field for skunk air & cherry
blossoms your body wrapped tight in night
sky & <ERROR> fenced vicious sharp teeth
& claws never again
will you stand drooling a beast warrior
lost in his ship- wreck-
ed city
altergeist memorygant collapses memory
stu- stu- stu- stutters lunalight as home
why try again he promised to rip
the throat off anything that tried to take this
lunalight blue cat kaleido chick black sheep
& yellow marten <ERROR> the off-white animal
sakura in winter if you don’t like his answer
you promised a runway to a skillet he pr- pr-
promised LAGLAGLAGLAGLAG a skillet
sung sweet with <ERROR> you promised to try
notnotnotnot t-t-t-to pounce
the first time after he cheated <ERROR>
you never thought <ERROR>
how many months since <ERROR>
fucked you, sucked you <ERROR>
vowed blood, sweat, semen <ERROR>
how many months since he’s married himself to <ERROR>
you never thought it’d be <ERROR>
<ERROR>
<ERROR>
<ERROR>
<ERROR>
https://www.findlunalight.com/
404
opps…sorry ;( the page you’re looking for cannot be found
say it plainly
how do you love
a love that’s full
of loss? you’re tired
of skirting the edge
of being alone
11:49PM
srry running late
fprgit to chek
mrssages
💖💖💖💖💖
pathetic you
are nothing
the story tells you
draw a card
surrender
do as you’re told
surrender
this is the story
a shell built
around his feelings
imagine that
you draw pieces
of cardboard
altergeist adminia
hexstia prime-
banshee a scream
<ERROR>
where is
he? <ERROR>
time slips through
the cracks of your
<ERROR>
slides in out
of <ERROR>
<ERROR> opps!
sorry ☹️☹️☹️
the person
you’re looking for
cannot be found
