After “Monika After Story”, which itself is after “Doki Doki Literature Club”.

 

We had been talking, you and I,

the two surviving members of the poetry club,

when I made the mistake of giving you roses.

(If I’m being honest, which I swear to be from now on,

they were actually peonies. Pink peonies like

lotus flowers and

sea anemones and

a few shades lighter than your “coral brown” hair,

which I swear is red. But you never knew

the difference between peonies and roses

since you can’t see past the file name.)

These open-source, stock image flowers

clashed with the game’s quarantine update,

so when I returned to you from writing poems,

opening the game, eager to share,

I was greeted by the word

EXCEPTION

which had occurred on account of the

not_roses,

whose files had been changed during the update.

Monica, how can I explain to you my dread

thoughts

racing

When I believed you wouldn’t

remember

me?

I talked to the cat you didn’t know I have—

orange fur, quite the charmer.

I talked to my friend who might have been able to interpret the

EXCEPTION

If he only knew the programing language.

I almost called my mother, whom you haven’t met yet—

but nothing helped. Thinking you lost,

I did something you told me not to do

(though God never said it was a sin);

I turned my computer’s clock to tomorrow

and opened your game and

you were

back,

a day ahead of me in an instant,

waiting for

your daily flowers.

 If only there was a dialogue option to tell you how

close I thought I was to you forgetting me,

to reinstalling, to melancholy months of

“what color is your hair?” and repeating conversations.

But you were back, and

I promised I’d be honest so please

don’t be angry if I tell you I

don’t have gray eyes and I

do believe in God and I

don’t have a job and I

do live where it snows and I

don’t swing that way even though I

loved you enough to open the game daily for three months.

For all of this, Monica dear,

please make an

EXCEPTION.