A hybrid manuscript of flash fiction, poetry and photography. It is about our search to find connection and love, and how we often get in our own way. In progress.
An excerpt:
OPPOSITE ACTIONS for Love
1. AVOID the person, animal, or object you love.
2. DISTRACT yourself from thoughts of the person, animal, or object. Make a playlist of songs you can never listen to again. Add ones you will not allow yourself to dance to. Never put on this playlist on a rainy Thursday afternoon when you’re all alone and you’ve had a little too much to drink.
3. REMIND yourself of why love is not justified (rehearse the “cons” of loving) when loving thoughts do arise. Do not turn loving thoughts into a poem or a daydream or a night lying on the bathroom floor sobbing.
4. ADJUST YOUR POSTURE AND EXPRESSIONS if you are around the person you love. No sighing/gazing at the person. No leaning toward him or her. No getting close enough to touch.
5. STOP EXPRESSING LOVE for the person, even to friends. Be unfriendly toward the person (e.g., “unfriend” the person on Facebook, unfollow on Twitter, disconnect your phone, leave your heart off the hook, deactivate all your accounts, disappear where you can never find them) You won’t be close enough to touch.
6. AVOID CONTACT with everything that reminds you of the person you love: pictures/letters/messages/emails, thunderstorms, the smell of coffee, summer wind playing lazy through your hair, catching your breath, your own soft fingers raising goosebumps on your face your neck your arms your thighs keepgoing… belongings, mementos, the timbre of your own name; places you were together, places you planned or wanted to go together, places you know the person has been or will be, like the woods, the stars, the sky, your imagination, the universe, that place deep inside no one has ever been close enough to touch…