Standalone Poetry

Donor Haiku(?)

In the year 2021, between the dates of January 3rd and January 10th, Awesome Games Done Quick 2021 (AGDQ) streamed on Twitch. For those who are unaware, this is a week-long event run twice per year, in which gamers show off their speedrunning skills to raise money for charity by way of donations from Twitch Chat.
As is tradition, Chat sent all sorts of messages with their donations, many of which were read by the many alternating hosts. On the third day of this event (Jan 5th) there was a Mega Man X3 run; during this game, the host at the time Skybilz decided to read a haiku sent in by a donor. This was nothing new--in fact it's a bit of a meme for donors to send haikus based on games being played. This particular haiku, however, was the subject of some confusion because it read as follows:

Mega Man is blue,

Zero is red,

Now let's see how

This game's played sped

For a minute or so after this piece was read on stream, Chat went wild accusing the poet of dishonesty or misunderstanding what a haiku is. They threw around labels of their own, calling it a nursery rhyme or a limerick--anything but a haiku. But here's the thing that Chat didn't realize at the time:

It is a haiku.

To give chat a little credit, I was confused at first too. The syllables are off and it's four lines! What gives?

Well, the answer lies in how Skybilz read the poem. There's no way of going back to see how the poem was written, but she certainly read it with pauses based on the rhymes, given this blue-red nursery rhyme is common enough that she would've likely given it the above rhythm without thinking. However, it's quite likely that the poet wrote it as:

Mega Man is blue,

Zero is red; now let's see

how this game's played sped

Five, seven, five, as haikus demand. Upon realizing this, I attempted to input this explanation, but GDQ requires one to subscribe before they're allowed to join Chat. So I decided to put my thoughts here, even though I don't have much reach on this platform. I just felt I should help in any way I could to redeem the poet. I only wish I could've done more.

Fortunately, however, Chat noticed their erroneous analysis not even an hour after this poem was read. In fact, it was during the time of this writing that Skybilz noticed Chat trying to inform her of their mistake. The poet was exonerated in this way and I was allowed to finish this writing with a clear conscience. Of course, why did I bother finishing it if everything was already fixed?

WELL. . .

I figured it would be a funny joke if someone read this all the way through.