Hand written? The ‘heart’ key of my keyboard is broken.
Aleatory points of love in the pure circulation of capitalism.
Is it possible to distribute one’s romantic life across different people? For example, the depth of two souls connecting in almost the briefest of exchanges is complimented by impersonal sex and both of which fit with other more or less intensive relationships that balance different needs and desires.
EDIT: For those too old or too well off to have never worked in the service industry (and are therefore not hip to the pallyaree of the lingua dollnaries):
POS = Point Of Sale
241 = Two For One (ie two chocolate bars for the price of one, or two people for one love…)
PLU = Price-Look Up (four digit number or code)
I like the handwritten version, but for the sake of it:
YOU
BUY
POS
241
PLU
I♥U
Ben, do not take what I write so literally 😉 The broken key of the keyboard was part of framing the poem. Long distance relationships mediated by technology and too many good intentions don\’t work, at least in my experience.
For starters, keyboards need a pause key, a fractured tonality of too much key, a touch key, a look key, a secret smile key, a faster breathing key, an eyebrow key, a grace key, a frown key, a disappointment key, a relaxed key, a shouty key, a tired key, and a gone silent key. A broken heart (key).
[silent]
I do not regret much (as a general life philosophy), but I regret having faith in the qwerty. This keyboard is an injustice to romance; it produces too much of something that is not enough. Its positivity of communication seduces us with easy non-communication; a fucking travesty.
All of this of course is on the opposite end of the spectrum to what the written poem was experimenting with; hence, the point. This is like the photographic negative of the above poem. Instead of a holding on, a desperation that overtakes like an action movie police pursuit in every out-stretched gesture, it is a celebration of an instantaneousness or immediacy or a small, insignificant nothing that within a barely comprehensible moment becomes joyful. In a flash, but more than a flash because it is cosmological, of two bodies with a look or moment of grace of a paradoxical absolute gravity and lightness force the world, the solar system and the universe to revolve around them for the this, the now; the gone.
Long distance? Fight for for it though, go toe to toe. Against bewilderment and stupidity. However, this is sometimes still not enough. I have now learnt this far too late. To put it simply, I needed to write the heart by hand.
[silent]
I’ll just go and sit in the corner, then. 😉