by Laura Brun

answer yes when asked are you still recovering
from something in your past. don’t accept no
as a response. no
i’m not here to find true love.
no i’m not here for casual sex.
we’re all living in the same city
but some of us are pediatricians, some of us drive
downtown every day, some
of us are finishing up
our BSs in physics, someone’s doing
all the new graffiti. it’s been
two dozen years and i still haven’t met a single
astronaut, a single architect. i met one
millionaire, and he was cheating on his girlfriend
with my girlfriend
at the time. don’t answer
which stereotype were you
in high school? is your life
one long blur from age zero to
last night? reply to the graphic
designer, reply to the
pediatrician, reply to the scruffy guy
who lists buffy in his
interests. ignore hey girl what’s up and ignore
dude who ran three 5Ks and reply to
are you looking to have some fun?
with of course not.

reply to the pediatrician
who says she doesn’t understand poetry
but believes in true love.
wait four days before asking
if she’d like to get coffee.
how long are your
relationships usually? how often do you
brush your teeth? answer no when asked
if you’d be upset if your lover
had a same-sex past. do pediatricians
drink coffee? everyone seems
to do outdoor activities.
add a picture of yourself
doing outdoor activities. all the pictures
where i’m not just smiling
into a screen were taken
by that ex-girlfriend. all
the pictures of me more recently
are too far away to see my face.
we’re all in a five-mile radius
of my front door. skip
the question are you a good
liar? come back tomorrow to
select yes. never hear back
from the pediatrician, never
get coffee two miles from
your house, walk around downtown
peering into office buildings, eat
ice cream by the fountain, try to seem
interesting. go home and you’ve had
three visitors, two new messages,
a hey there and a you know what
i meant by fun, right?