Existential Pick-up Lines

Sep 14, 2020 | Bubbler

Hey, I’m just a girl, standing 5 feet away

from a boy. Asking him to maybe move back another foot. Thanks.

I saw you from across the bar. Stay there.

You smell so good. Is that Purell you’re wearing?

If I told you that you have a beautiful body, would you

hold it against my window?

If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d keep U and I

exactly where they are, with eleven letters of longing

between them.

You can’t spell quarantine without “u r a q t.”

Want to make plans that we have to cancel?

Looking at the map for some weekend travel ideas;

Floorplan: Two bedrooms, two bathrooms,

kitchen, dining room, living room,

laundry room, and a balcony.

Wanna listen to some Billy Idol, and do what the song suggests by

dancing with ourselves? Only with each other? But in separate rooms?

We shouldn’t get together sometime.

Originally from Maplewood, NJ, Ilari Pass is a retired maintenance worker of the United States Postal Service. She holds a BA in English from Guilford College of Greensboro, NC, and an MA in English, with a concentration in literature, from Gardner-Webb University of Boiling Springs, NC. Her work appears or forthcoming in RedFezUnlikely Stories, Triggerfish Critical Review, Rigorous Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, Drunk Monkeys, Broad River Review, Common Ground Review, and others.