Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Someone on Craigslist is Rhyming to Find You

We’ve all heard the grizzly tales of the Craigslist killer. We know that the person on the other end of the ad could be entirely creepy. I try to always bring an intimidating friend along if I’m going to retrieve a free Craigslist item. But what if the person behind a Craigslist post was not only NOT a murderer, but also a sensitive poet?

Enter the missed connections section of Craigslist. Here, people post small descriptions of their encounters with attractive strangers, in hopes of finding them and, well, connecting. Most people stick to the bare descriptions and most necessary details of their love found in Starbucks or on the subway, but recently, someone got a little more creative.

Below are two poems posted in the missed connections section of the New York area Craigslist, verbatim, save a few stanza breaks. Are you the muse for these tiny flashes of poetic inspiration?

approaching the lakehouse

at Central Park this evening.

I thought you were

sensually intelligent,

exquisitely erotic

and spiritually liberated.

While the cops stopped you

from making a spectacle of yourself,

to me, I thought

there was no greater tribute to beauty,

liberation and bold innocence than you.

Perhaps it was just the sweltering heat

that prompted you,

but you prompted in me

my own sweltering heat

longing for the right words to say

at that moment in that silent

side by side momentary

splendor of you.

I cheated myself

from seizing that moment,

but I hope to find it again

with you.

Write me and find me

as I find in you

a new liberation

we are both longing

to express

without judgment or repression,

that is simply perfect

in its mutuality and discovery.

I await you.

Arise and I shall arise,

be my sweet July jasmine

perfuming my mental sky

as I dream of you tonight.

The Company, Carousel, Bowling

We were at all the same places on Sunday.

It was incredibly humid

and you had pink top and jeans.

I was in the tank top and shorts

with my little daughter.

You had yours.

We should have talked…

but you had the bodyguard

and attention.

I give this a 1 in about 2 billion chance.

There’s an easy way

to let me know it is you.

(Text courtesy of Craigslist, image courtesy of the Concord Insider)