ENCRYPTED

Call it what you want. Call it a game. I wait for the vulnerable, an “I’ll find her,” just off a name. A picture in a locket. Letters to write home. Not a text, not an ignored call on someone’s phone. In all our intellectuality, we have sterilized and rationalized love. A self-help book. We do as we’re told. Feign disinterest, never be bold. We separate and replicate connection. No time for divine affection. The epic loves of all time, just fiction, only an exception. We’re diagnosing each other, degrees of attached. Virtual resumes with photos that match. One of many, never one of a kind. All the magic is lost, at least in my mind. Trauma and puzzle pieces, they fit well enough, easy to patch. Congratulations, it’s a match. But what about the fleeting memory, the one you can’t quite catch? Looking at a photo, something looks different. A soul that’s supposed to be there really isn’t. A laugh in the distance. A face you can’t quite sketch. Preserved initials in a trunk, a promise carved and kept. Just stop and look. Do your eyes recognize mine? When I’ve lain in bed time after time, yanking on this string attached to my chest, have you had nights of torturous unrest? Maybe this world changed you to think only objectively. The ache in your body needing treatment, only clinically. Would you at least marvel at the curiosity, my presence an unknown familiarity? I’m probably alone. Just a woman, too sentimental. Just beauty. Wasted potential.

How can one appreciate the artwork if they are running down the hallway of life, not even a pause for the Venus of Urbino? Her beauty does not diminish for being unseen. Not even a glance for The Kiss in its most perfect light, Yet it still remains romantic. Like the Birth of Venus, I have sprawled across waters, A still goddess, waiting to awaken. They slow, some of them. Just for a breath. I hear it their measured steps, I feel it their hungry gaze tracing the curve of my waist. They mistake stillness for surrender, light for permission, the skin of a body for a threshold. Rest then, Art never yearns for appreciation. Its value does not diminish. Even in your absence. It is a connoisseur who aches to possess. To frame a beauty that cannot be held To claim a face that was never theirs. An entrepreneur is not a connoisseur, An entrepreneur does not linger. They do not linger. They do not kneel. They build doors. And a painting will never open.

I don’t regret it, not one bit. Every ounce of love was given willingly. I knew you needed it more than I did. Every milliliter of care was crafted, carefully, just for you. I cared intentionally, not by accident, not by chance. I chose I saw you needed someone to. Yes, it hurt a little. Maybe I gave a bit more than I should have. But as I push your yawl back out to sea, know this: you owe me nothing. I want you to have it. I hope you found what you were needing. I hope you find what you are seeking.

I will not be placed on hold. I will not be here when you return. The tangled cord of half-truths and miscommunication filled me with such rage I ripped it from the wall. You will send letters. The beautiful girl with bronze skin doesn’t live there anymore. The post is overflowing, the garden left abandoned. You can try a message in a bottle, it will never reach the depths where I dwell. I will not be returning to the shore. I warned you: I can’t survive long in the shallows. I won’t be here when you return.

Never present for connection only present for the selection I'm attracted to a level-headed disposition but it quickly fades to anxious premonitions a debt not an asset my aptitude never as convenient as my silhouette Perhaps bewildered by my venomous inclinations that guard what I have learned: loyalty is more than a declaration. I'm afraid I've become jaded, the rose-colored lenses, tainted. Being wanted isn't the same as being awaited.

How opposite we are The machine vs tortured romantic Brash hand-cramped confessions Clean automatic correspondence Accomplishment in the release Productivity in the acquisition What juxtaposition, inspiring confounding How I crave to bring life to your world As you bring stillness to mine