Quick Perceptions

“Thank you for your strength and for trusting me.”

An excerpt

It is truly magical how much a stranger can pick up about you based solely on your happenstance appearance that day and the few words you choose to say to them. And suddenly, a poem is formed. Today I sat for one of those flash poets while walking around the Museum Mile Festival after a stressful day. 

I just have to note, it is incredibly more erotic than one would assume. You’re sitting across the table from each other, you glance but don’t stare, meanwhile the poet is typing, then thinking, then typing some more. The art of writing is truly a beautiful thing. Being able to perceive on a deeper level than face value and articulate that perception into different, interesting and unconventional ways is truly a gift. 

He barely looks up but yet incorporates both your red-tinted lips and the low heels you’re wearing into your poem. 

He comments on your body, whose hips have been lately forming and assumes your chest is tattoo-less (for now). Who comments on your physical form and the way you move solely by saying "check/ out beautiful/ my body is" as if to remind you in case you forgot today.

He mentions a formal pivot which refers to you telling him, “I graduated from grad school recently. I like tattoos,” as if they were sentenced made to fit together. 

The fact that he somehow picked up on the fact that I am rarely spontaneous at all and mentions yelp, meanwhile dudes I’ve spoken heaps more words to still don’t, or won’t, understand that concept. 

The fact that the attractive man before you’s poem was barely the front of the card while yours was the front and back almost completely. 

The fact that when he was reviewing the poem before handing it to you, he turned it over and smiled at the first few lines on the back, and when you read those lines, that say, “what’s poppin/ how you doin-,” you smile too. 

xx