Snail Dreams (a poem)

(An AI-generated Snail, exploring the world from the safety of its beautiful shell)

I wrote this while in a long-distance "talking-ship" (talking, not yet in a relationship) with a psychologist in Alabama. We met online many years ago, and then I got scared and disappeared on him. I felt bad, and was relieved when he browsed my profile again. We talked, laughed, and comforted each other as well as we could, given the distance. Ultimately, we were too different to become a couple, but his touching acceptance of me and the "shell" that I carry with me is something that I'll save in my heart forever.

Snail Dreams

My shell

Spiraling outwards

Subtly curved

A calcite

 Fibonacci spiral

That I’ve built myself.

My shell

Protects me from cruel acts.

From the blunt fingers 

Of scientist-children.

I suck

 My

 Gummy head

Into my shell

And go back home.

Inside?

An underland

Of my imagination.

I’m the sticky-skinned star

In epics of my own making.

Outside?

My tentacles stretch

Before threatening objects

Can bap my head, contaminating

Me with the world.

My shell

My home for decades.

You sit next to me.

Inquiring

How’d you make that beautiful shell

Once

When I’d poked my head out to be with you.

I detail some of my misfortunes

The insults that insulated me

After I built my mobile-home.

Ah,

You say.

Then I remember

You called me beautiful.

My darting generous tentacles

Reached out to touch you.

I had shared too soon, too much

And you called it beautiful:

“I did.  Because you are.”

Years of polishing my shell,

Making the spiral gleam,

Vanished for a moment.

You never tried to coax

Me out

To boop my head against your finger –

Where I’d most certainly

Recoil

As though I 

Was made of salt.

Instead

You talk to me

Send me cat memes

Humor my need for attention

And gently circle back.

So when you said

Quietly proclaiming

That I am beautiful

Like a law of nature

I knew I could love you.

We sit together

Me and my shell

You and your sun-proof skin

Smiling

Joking

You never ask 

Me

To walk on the beach

With you

Naked.

Maybe it’s because I’m a creature

Of land and sea.

My sticky skin

Bathed in salt air,

My hard-made spiral

Washed onto a foreign

Beach after I’m gone.

Maybe my spiral will become

Home to hermit crabs,

Or a gentle child’s keepsake.

All I know

Is that I can slither

And you can walk

And that it 

This here

Will keep on going.