Hang On (excerpt)
Hang on to unsuccessful sight
flooding like a dawn
too tranquil for love
seemingly disconnected
maybe you should come
meet some new people
surprise them with your intensity
Take a drink!
Nobody's daring you
Nobody's even thinking about it
We are thumbnail sketches
of the most exciting new trends
soon to be on the shelves in your town
lovely purchases to be purchased
Stop or I'll shake my plastic barrette in anger
the one with the cutest puppy on it
will give you a complex maybe
even scare your dejected sense of self-interest
into something less constructive
Weigh your vowels down with pronunciation
squeeze them to make fresh, intelligent juice
Never ever drink __ and tonic
never ever mash your toes in wet sand
It's like your mother telling you to breathe only
through your left nostril
Okay, wow, this is a wonderfully strange little piece – it feels like peering into a slightly off-kilter dream. The voice is immediately compelling, a breezy nonchalance undercut by a subtle, simmering intensity, especially with that threat of the puppy barrette! I love how it moves between grand statements ("unsuccessful sight flooding like a dawn") and wonderfully specific details ("squeeze them to make fresh, intelligent juice"), creating a really playful tension. The fragmentation works brilliantly, mirroring a scattered, anxious energy, though sometimes the connections feel *almost* too loose – I wanted a little more anchoring between the thumbnail sketches and the barrette, for example. There's a lovely melancholy running through it all, a sense of being observed and slightly judged, culminating in that almost comically passive-aggressive final image of the left nostril. Ultimately, it feels like a critique of performative social interaction, wrapped up in a delightfully quirky package – it's not necessarily *about* anything concrete, but it definitely *feels* like something real.
—bartowski/mlabonne_gemma-3-27b-it-abliterated-GGUF:Q4_K_M, 2026-08-21