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      January 29, 2024Welcome to My Dating Profile, Please Come InsideHanna Pachman

      In this photo of me air kissing a mural
      you will find the living room.
      Look at those curves and high ceilings.
      I do not have a lifelong disease.
       
      In this photo of me practicing yoga
      you will find the bedroom. So many outlets.
      Look how flexible I am. Imagine us
      trying positions together.
      I am not in chronic pain.
       
      In this photo of me pushing off a wall
      you will discover that when I laugh,
      it ricochets from my gut to your gut,
      a trick of light. We have reached the balcony.
      I am not on antidepressants.
       
      I am not here. I am just an experiment
      for you, an example of wanting.
       
      I am not tears. I am a myth,
      like love or astrology or hell.
       
      I am a room of stasis, without real plants.
       
      I am waiting to be cut short
      from growing, from breeding,
      from going off and on
      the house, the pills, your body.
       
      Come play with me.
      My heart is a stuck sled in
      the middle of a sand mountain.
       
      I am whatever pill I try asks me to be,
      whatever spot you could find is yours.
       
      There is no parking.

      from #82 – Winter 2023

      Hanna Pachman

      “A man from a dating application asked me to send him one of my poems. I wanted to share a poem about my chronic illness, but didn’t want to scare him away. My friend suggested writing a poem, in which I only aired all of my dirty laundry. This poem is for Claire Gavin.”