Why I Play Candy Crush on my Phone Every Morning
to wake myself up slowly to see vibrant color to control a screen to follow rules to get hints to be able to stop at any time to let my mind wander in a field of colorful explosions with or without sound to write poems in my head to waste time to fill time when I’m waiting for something to happen that does or does not happen to keep still to stave off existential angst to be frustrated at not moving on until I almost give up and stop and then I don’t to be urged on by silliness
to enjoy something alone to burst a line of candy and release all the bears to spread the jam to enjoy candy without eating any to appear as I have something to do to keep the sound off to sit on my bed to have something to do during commercials
to avoid
to send lives to people I don’t know and receive help now and then to sense a kind of progress
to get to level 3181 without ever spending money to learn about knew features to know what the blue turtle is for to dodge the bombs to make special candies to blow up the screen with color to remember the time I ate a bag of Swedish fish driving from Mahopac to Alfred, New York to feel nothing for as long as I can to allow my mind to wander
to have something on my imaginary to-do list to keep my mind off of pain
to think about what I might do
to go into a trance
to sink into memory
Anne Graue is the author of Full and Plum-Colored Velvet, (Woodley Press, 2020) and Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press, 2017) and has poetry in SWWIM Every Day, Verse Daily, Rivet Journal, Mom Egg Review, Flint Hills Review, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and in print anthologies, including The Book of Donuts (Terrapin Books, 2017) and Coffee Poems (World Enough Writers, 2019). Her book reviews appear in FF2 Media, Adroit, Green Mountains Review, Glass Poetry Journal, and The Kenyon Review. She is a poetry editor for The Westchester Review.