Things I could’ve written about for tonight: Fitness updates. What I eat in a week. My current skin care routine. A deep dive into my love for the Arctic Monkeys. (I may yet write about these things).

But tonight, with everything and nothing in my head, I decided to go back. Hey! It’s been ages since I’ve looked at Craigslist Missed Connections!

Those of you unfamiliar with my Missed Connections Exquisite Corpse poems can read this post for an explanation. It’s my most recent in the series. I wrote it in 2022! Not to my surprise, I skipped 2023.

The take-away of that explanation is that I don’t write a single line of these poems. Every line is a line that I find in Craigslist’s Missed Connections section, harvested over time; 99% of the poems is written by strangers. I just select them and cobble them together. In tonight’s post, I added the word “Dear” to the beginning of each stanza, because…

I’m calling this one

Missed Connections Valentine’s Day Letters

Dear Briana with the Pipersong chair:
The gym.
You left your oats at the gym.
Brick Road coffee Friday night?

Dear Tall Waste Management Guy:
I gave you and your friend a ride to Jack’s.
’72 Dodge Challenger.
(Sunshine, they call you Sunny)
You knocked on my door in Flagstaff, all I wanted was a Modelo.

Dear Mandy:
Valley of the Sun dispensary.
Sticky Saguaro.
Craft fair at Sundial.
(Something in common?)

Dear McKenzie’s Party Greeter:
Talked to you in the guitar store,
Tempe beach park,
Desert Diamond.
I had pneumonia.

Dear Nameless Valentine:
Chess on flight to Phoenix.
Lost glasses
In the Orpheum Theater.
We met at a bar on Sunday.

I left my heart in Mesa.

~~~~~

As usual, there were a few line selections that ended up on the cutting room floor. For instance, I wanted to use “On the Rocks Saturday,” but it didn’t fit anywhere to my liking. I also wanted to include “Flight from Detroit to Phoenix,” because Kyle is from Detroit and we met in Phoenix, but again, it didn’t fit into the poem. And I really wanted to use “Penny the mini black Schnauzer at Pet Smart” for obvious reasons. That didn’t work out, either, but I found myself looking into miniature schnauzers in the process of creation and I momentarily wondered whether I’m a future mini schnauzer mom in an alternate universe, but the schnauzer rescue organization I found is in Chandler, which is in this universe, so I specifically imagined a collision course with an orphaned mini schnauzer in some sector of the multiverse at some point in time because stranger things have certainly happened, but since then, further research strongly suggested that mini schnauzers and cats are best not mixed in a household. All of this to assure you that you can learn about mini schnauzers from Missed Connections, lest you had your doubts.

Writing this post also prompted me to look up Pipersong chairs. If I ever decide to throw $500.00 at a desk chair, it’s going to have to be one of those.

Thank you for hanging out with me here, friends. Until next time.