There are some things I wish it was okay to say to the person you want to date but can't because it's just, you can't. Like talk some sort of gibberish about potatoes but still be on the same page and not appear weird and not appear obsessed with something like potatoes. Here's a monologue I've had with myself and my ideal potato-lover.
Do you like potatoes? I think potatoes are sexy and yum. Let's eat potatoes. I was driving, flying home from work today, thinking about buying grape tomatoes. Do you ever dream that you're on a boat, flying through cornfields? I really want to kiss you in a cornfield, but nothing rhymes with cornfield. So, sorry, we can't do that, because I can't write a poem about it. I should stop writing poetry then. Just kidding, I made you laugh. We can just settle for my back porch, because I have a hobbit door back there. We can laugh about it and pretend to be hobbits and miss those days when it was okay to pretend to be hobbits. Do you ever feel so small that you could slip right through the crack of my window where the cold air comes in? It freezes you before you make it here. Maybe that's not going to work. I don't want you to feel small. You're the biggest thing in the world to me right now, and I don't care that you can't fit through by back door. No, you're not fat. You're heart is SO FAT. Does my dirty cornflower blond hair bother you? Do you want it to be brighter, cleaner, softer, leaner? I can make that happen. Remember when you called that one time you didn't know how to write something important down? I was twirling my hair the whole time. I hope you wrote something down. Don't feel down. Get you a pick-me-up. Pick me up with your biceps, that'd be magical, don't you think? Your smarty girl, artsy, trying-to-be-hipster. What if I were to ever call you mister? Would that bother you, because people have these weird complexes where they don't want to be treated proper but instead in a more creative but sometimes toxic way. Kind of how the notion of the original hipster has been so tainted. I don't want that. And here you're letting me talk to myself without listening. As if you were listening to music you only think and say you listen to. Let's listen to Drake. He sings about good girls. Do you think he means it? I fancy myself one of them, in the world, doing good, being a girl. But only fancy. Don't be fancy. Let's go home and grow in the dirt.
Somehow, today's bit was inspired by Ted Kooser's "New Potato" as well as Drake. Ask me how and why they relate sometime, and I'll make something up, because I have no idea. But there's nobody here to tell me it's ridiculous or this is ridiculous. But if you're answering, I'm listening, you sexy potato, you.
This is just one of the leathery eggs
the scuffed-up, dirty turtle of the moon
buried early in spring, her eyes like stars
fixed on the future, and, inside its red skin,
whiteness, like all of the moons to come,
and marvelous, buttered with light.
- from Ted Kooser's Valentines
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