Illustration by Dawn Lo
I just need a minute to gather my thoughts,
re-articulate who I am in the dating game:
Ambitious. A lover of rap and food.
Fancy but not pretentious.
Still down to earth. Yes, I love hiking!
I’ve learned to sell myself,
gotten quite good at it. So much so that I can tell
you are impressed, elongating that wow.
Yeah, I do have my shit together, thank you!
(Although that notion is a tenuous cable
that can snap at any moment.)
I admire your dexterity, you like my mind.
Too bad you chew with your mouth open
and five minutes in you could tell
my catlike intensity about the Umbrella Movement
was too much for you.
Rutgers made you business-savvy
but you were still a surfer at heart.
We made non-committal plans
to never see each other again.
Frances Du is a poet and photographer based in Toronto, Ontario. Her work has been published in the Hart House Review and The Literary Review of Canada. She is currently working on her first book of poems, PORTRAITS. You can connect with her @frannywrites on Twitter.
Illustration by Dawn Lo