The tests are consistent, and conversation reinforces it. I am a five. There were nine possibilities, and right there smack dab (actually dabs) in the middle I’ve found myself.
Conveniently, I gather information from my solitude. Eliminating dependencies is a virtue, and relationships aren’t exempt. A few good friends, loyal to the ends. Of the earth, more information. A wellspring. A flood of decisions.
A random letter
A jellyfish
The words flow through me
No filter
Unfiltered
The IPA that you’ll settle on
The land you’ll abandon
My soul is not right within me
My friar is tucked
Away game
Staying the same as virtue
Change as vice
Reverse them in the right measure
Tile
Grout
Permanence until the special tool is purchased for $7.99
That’ll be the day
It will
I won’t
I can’t
Admit defeat in the face of defeat
Cloth yourself with unwashed feet
Settle in
Stumble in
Upon
Fragrance
Training the algorithm
Art becomes predictable
So randomness will
Be introduced
Imperceptible to the naked
Both unashamed
Innocent by association
Protect the institution
Stand for nothing
Fall is coming
Leaves of change
Leaves of stagnation
Abomination
Guilty by inoculation
Living a Nerf life
Refusal to trigger
They manufacture basketballs too
Dunks are reserved for swimming
Addition by abstraction
Vernacular inaction
Bicameral live action
Friend of sinners
World building labor
Curried function favor
Goldie Wilson mayor
Bore our sorrows
Pattern of establishments
No new settlements
Cutting farmhouse cookies
Tracts never plowed
Born again again
With a collapsed lung
Inflated without ego
Heavy breathing
Something is not right
Something isn’t right
Nothing left to write
That hasn’t already been said
Melancholy apathy
Wallflower desire
Waiting for recognition of genius
You are a marketer
The revenue reports
You are a worshiper
The expenses report
Disruption is admission
we want what our parents wanted
Just with more dollars and fewer people
Family ties
Family knots
Family belts
Family wafts
The stench of familiar dread
Marching into duty
Threads stitched without reason
Passion fruit
Elation of an ending
Consider next meeting
Lambast definition
Fleeting meaning
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but
(intentional silence)
Thoroughbreds follow through on threads
Leaving no conversation hanging
Troubadour Labradors taking bites out of crime
Alliteration alienation of the uneducated
Pride
An original goal
And exciting new role
And the motivation is waning
Trepidation preceding
All legal proceedings
Ceasing innovation
Don’t start
You’ll have to sustain
Don’t stop
You’ll have no sustenance
Anything you can do I can do better
I can disrupt industry better than you
Totally repaved
Drag ready
Light show countdown
To infinity and belong
Outdoors
Away from the bustle
Hustling intimacy
From rocks rolled wantonly
Noodles
No company
No board
Self ashore’d
Maritime law
Cleansing claw
Thimble shot pinprick
Ashamed at seasick
Blaming individuals for their environments
Climate change
Waste not
Want not
Thou not
Fear not
Take up
Life and
Seize the
Motorcade
Be the change
Obscene in the world
Distancing bodies
Information exchange
Blame others
Shame self
Shelf life
Expired ideas
Think tank
Open waters
Shark tank
Cash cows
Eliminate waste
Profit
Profit
Comprehensive euphemisms
Assigning meaning to each
And every careless word
An aggression calculated
Nothing is secular
Everything is belief
All will be tried
All will be found
A Tribe Called Quest
A church called Quest
Interests in vest
Protect your rest
Farming communities
Agrarian commodities
Traded freely
Job creating subsidies
Emotional safety
Micro machines
Aggression in action
Routed dev slash null
Radical transparency
Confidential therapy
Communicating desires
No is an answer
I wrote it.
I felt it.
I stopped
My longings.
To leanings.
For not
Incompletion.
The vice of perfection.
A facade.
Starting.
Laboring.
Striving.
Rest
Online dating
Online courtship
Online promise ring
Online wait for me
Two day shipping
“He’s a catch”
Market price
Happily ever after
Can apathy produce poetry?
Council concludes uncertainty
Lethargy as safety
Abuse goes unopposed
An excellent communicator
Catered expectations
Fireable offenses
Numerated exceptions
Thankful in silence
Pronounced in distress
Buffered criticism
Loading indicator
Wait for it payoff
Played off
Key
Hole in your pantsuit
Transmute to pants
I was drawn to poetry early. Somewhere the thread was lost, and I’m slowly retracing it. My prose is stale, if not utterly inefficient for transmitting an emotion. Not to mention the layered emotions that meet between hope and indifference.
But as I begin to write again, I unqualifiably “feel alive” and “like myself” for the first time in a long time. Joy in the valley.
As much as I feign independence, I value connections deeply. I share to solicit emails (messages, not addresses), and maybe we’ll become friends.
Flank steak cooked right
Choice cut food fight
Fly by twist tie
Tonic water list price
Sadducees see right
Wrongs done by night
Thanks given upright
Offshore fine light
Produce
Produce
Rest can’t wait
Years given over
Await
Creation weeps
Until longings cease
From resolve lost to indifference
All is vanity
So look for nothing
find it all the same
Competition is fierce
Victory is sweet
So I’m told
Bear market
Bull market
NaN market
null market
"undefined is not a function" market
Trading our futures
Rent free ideas
Flowing flowing flan
Baseball catchphrase
Waiting resting
Opportunity cost
Opportunity savings
Pencil cap sharpener
Collecting the dust
Game seven
Presidential opening pitch
Overthrown by a government employee
Packed in warehouses to overflowing
Waiting to be picked, to find a partner
The lights go out for a time from time
To time the progress
Record the results
Elevation gains
Hopeless in victory
Awaiting epiphany
Transfiguration
Shared with few at most
Gaining elevation while heading East
This pattern is tied but true
Shepherds pine for namesake pie
Drinks too
Brands are people too
Standing up for truth
They’ll provide the choices
To discover the real you
A million decisions
Of varying precision
Be anything at all
There are no restrictions
Destroy/rebuild the liver
Smoked meat every dinner
Ashes to ashes
Dust to Swiffer
Give us a king!
Laws! Rules!
Let us be like all the others.
Make us in the image of the others
Nation will rise
Against. Afront
Good news for all poor
Needles and camels too
Larger mammals
Smaller machining
It’s all possible
Ghost camper gel strips
Teeth whitening dole whip
Carcinogenic frost tips
Hallucinating cat nip
Flatulent flatulents
Very good at business
Mandatory witness
Sadness over dog piss
Gladness over dog piss
Sleeping with the fishes
Euphemism allow list
Virtue signal commish
The same prose
The same prose
Deviate here
Similar prose
Enumerate the syllables
But withhold too many
A brief outro
Donezo
A Five on the Enneagram and Other Myths I Tell Myself is a collection of poetry I wrote between October and November 2019. It is mostly a stream of consciousness I hammered into Notes.app on iOS while I sat in my home office, church, bed, etc.
As far as reserving of rights, reproductions, copyrights, and attributions go… please contact me. If you’d like to know about more projects like this you can sign up here.