Swipe, Pray, Repeat

I used to walk into rooms
and meet wonder without trying,
first dates were laughter and easy light,
keeping love was the lesson I dodged.

Time moved, the world tilted,
and the marketplace moved into our palms,
a river of faces flowing past like billboards,
left for no, right for maybe,
hope reduced to a thumb and a glow.

Matches flicker, replies do not,
the algorithm promises destiny by Tuesday,
yet offers silence by Wednesday noon.
Ghosts abound, not the noble kind from stage,
but people who vanish while the coffee is still warm.

I have sworn off this circus more than once,
deleted the apps, reinstalled the apps,
made oaths to the moon, then to the gym,
told myself I would be my own kingdom.
I improved what could be improved,
mind steadier, body stronger, spirit clearer,
a house swept and waiting.

Still, modern love feels like Sisyphus in dress shoes,
the stone renamed Join, Leave, Typing,
then nothing.
Twice lately, I thought I saw a harbor,
two bright ships signaled welcome, then turned,
leaving me waving at clean horizons.

Why not me, I asked the quiet,
the quiet answered with its usual shrug.
I have broken hearts and had mine reworked,
the tally flipped when I was not watching,
and now I carry a tender ache
for the ones who said yes until they did not.

Once I could charm with a grin and a story,
now I practice patience like a monk with a cracked bell.
I speak kindness to strangers in checkout lines,
and they look at me like I am practicing a lost art.
Diogenes searched for an honest man with a lantern,
I wander for an honest conversation with a latte.

Some nights I imagine a hand finding mine,
not a rescue, a joining,
and I whisper a line borrowed from old pages,
love is patient, love keeps showing up.
Other nights I laugh at myself,
King of First Dates, Duke of Cancelled Plans,
servant to an inbox full of Maybe.

There is humor if you tilt your head,
the waiter asks, table for two,
I say, prophecy, and he smiles like maybe he knows.
The cat approves of my singleness,
the rent does not.

Yet something stubborn keeps its flame,
call it faith, call it the small voice that survived the storms.
I am not looking for perfect,
only for a person who will take my hand
and let us be better, together, than our separate courage.

I will still show up, even when no one does.
I will still write the message that is thoughtful,
even when a thumbs up would be easier.
I will still ask, tell me your favorite book,
because a soul hides between pages.

If you find me on a shoreline at dusk,
I might be praying to the tide,
or bargaining with Plato about forms and shadows,
or laughing at my own reflections in the glass.
I am worn by the process,
but not undone by it.

The future visits me in small rehearsals,
a grocery aisle hello, a shared joke on the stairs,
a table where two coffees cool too slowly,
and we do not notice because the story is good.
When she comes, if she comes,
I will remember the deserts I walked to reach her,
and maybe she will have sand on her shoes too.

We will trade the inventory of our almosts,
the ghosts we outlived, the profiles we escaped,
and we will laugh, the kind of laugh
that dismisses old storms from the doorway.
She will take my hand, not to save me,
but to say, here, let us carry this world together.

Until then I keep the lamp trimmed,
I keep the joke ready, I keep the door unlatched.
I keep walking into rooms,
still willing to be surprised,
still willing to believe that fortune favors the brave,
and that grace, patient as the tide,
is already walking toward me.