Our bonding strategies...

[breathtest]

This came to me a while ago as my previous girlfriend was cutting my hair. The fact that she had never cut anybody's hair before didn't seem to matter.


Our bonding strategies are based upon reliance,
maintaining skin contact during mundane tasks that
can be carried out more effectively by other means.
A girl cuts her man's hair; a mother teases a splinter
out of her grown son's finger with a needle.

To approach a state
of closeness by bounding
over the tender wall of
sensitivity.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I note with pleasure how the prosiness, the authoritative philosophical statement of the first three lines gives way to the lovely analogy in lines 4 & 5, and then you return to philosophical observation in the 2nd stanza. (Where, however, surely "bounding" was meant to be bonding?

I anticipate that it might not appeal to everyone, but I think the whole is a poem in the way it mimics the way our minds work: from detached observation, to inspiration, then back again...

[Buh4Bee]

I certainly enjoyed the sentimental tone to the poem. Both analogies are sweet imagines.
How sweet your girl or previous girl was able to inspire this, and how nice she cut your hair.

My only constructive thing to say is that the shape of the poem bothers me. It appears to be off balance. Could the last line be merged with the first stanza?

[dizzydoll]

Just my simple opinion. I liked it, as is... this could also work very nicely all on its own, as is:

To approach a state
of closeness by bounding
over the tender wall of
sensitivity.

[lallison]

[

a mother teases a splinter
out of her grown son's finger with a needle.

I thought these were the strongest lines of the poem and produce very meaningful imagery. The rest reads like interesting and enjoyable philosophical musings. Your terse thoughts are always fun to read and show a lot of insight and introspection.

[breathtest]

Thanks a lot everyone for the good comments. And yes Jersea i think merging that last line into the first stanza would work, however i was going for emphasis on that last line by detaching it from the rest, because it is kind of the culmination of the thoughts expressed in the first stanza. I'll play around with it a bit see what i like.

Thanks guys!