An Invitation

I am more than the sum of my parts...

and you, you boy, are not aiming at my heart.

Your question through Bumble is not "cheeky" or kind.

I'm surprised that you didn't think that I would mind.

Yes, I know my smile is white and straight,

but that's not an open invitation for us to mate.

My eyes are sparkling in the photo, it's true,

but they aren't (in this case) sparkling for you!

You see, you don't know me, don't presume that you do!

'cause when you do, it makes me really, really not want to get to know you.

Just because this app reduces us to a swipe left or right,

it doesn't me that I'm going to sleep with you tonight...

We've both been flattened into 0's and 1's,

and this modern dating, it just really (really!) isn't any fun...

But I am interested to see how your mind works,

and discover if we can coexist without turning into jerks.

I want to step away from this flattened binary code,

and with you by my side, hit the open road.

23 Emotions: Kuebiko

The middle of the middle,
day becomes the morrow.

Alone on the balcony.

Air forms my companion and has as much substance as one.
Hot.
Humid.

Dry lightning flashes in the distance.
(over the mountains)

Silent.

A world apart.
(come apart)

Wide awake with tired heaviness.
Quiet lightning at the dividing point.

One separating out into two,
and though it doesn't seem possible,
sleep comes.

The violence of the storm slips behind the front ridge.

...beneath our surface.

kuebiko n. a state of exhaustion inspired by an act of senseless violence, which forces you to revise your image of what can happen in this world—mending the fences of your expectations, weeding out invasive truths, cultivating the perennial good that’s buried under the surface—before propping yourself up in the middle of it like an old scarecrow, who’s bursting at the seams but powerless to do anything but stand there and watch.

23 Emotions: Jouska

Jangling 'round my head, 

a jouska, following the usual thread.

'round and around in circles I go.

A one-sided conversation, I know, I know!

It can't be helped, this dialogue of one.

I wish, at least, that it were fun.

The control is all mine, in this mono-dialogue.

Ha! ...and of course it has ended up on my blog.

I've reduced you, first, to words in my head.

Oh, I wish that it were somewhere else, instead.

Reduction continues, it plays along.

You've become a binary code, it seems just plain wrong.

Once you were a man, flesh, blood and bone,

but now you're nothing (just bits of code).

and I am alone.

Alone.

one

jouska n. a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head--a crisp analysis, a cathartic dialogue, a devastating comeback--which serves as a kind of psychological batting cage where you can connect more deeply with people than in the small ball of everyday life, which is a frustratingly cautious game of change-up pitches, sacrifice bunts, and intentional walks.

23 Emotions: Chrysalism

In that moment,
chrysalism shattered.

Mirroring nature,
ourselves so, too.

Transitions require a break,
within,
and without.

Fluid movement, of moment.
Soft welcome fracture.

It started raining inside.
Fat drops falling from the ceiling.
(above us)

Water, 
washing away the dust from the broken wall.

We move to the other side.

Beyond the rubble.

A other space.
One in which to examine what built it.

The promise of water.

The promise of dust.

(the process of both)

You k(no)w
I know.

Promises require stones.
The "after-rain" requires stones.






Chrysalism n. the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain pattering against the roof like an argument upstairs, whose muffled words are unintelligible but whose crackling release of built-up tension you understand perfectly.