Edit with Ashley: From My Sole Soulmate to Just a Minute's Soulmate

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This post captures my editing process of condensing my 30-line poem into 20 lines :)

Original version of the poem:

My Sole Soulmate

When my dry lips pushed each other away
And my brain as dead as the Dead Sea—no, that’s not it—
And my brain as dead as the laptop mouse—yes! That’s it—
I knew that I was bored to death
So I did a Facebook search
To track my soulmate down—there, my confession—
And guess who and what I found!
The girl who shared my live life story!
And I wasn’t even kidding yah!

Was it true as the so-called—
Well, that lame phrase—you know it
OK, OK.
Was it true as the so-called—
Universal truth?
This I asked myself and tried to ask her
Via telepathy—no, sorry.

Via Messenger—now that’s better.
Being truthful—
And truth is, yeah, we did
Sort of
Share a live life story.
Then again,
A sort of is just a sort off.

It’s like listening to the evening news
Via the Live BBC Radio app
Whilst having my breakfast in bed
Because she’s not even close to
Being my fraternal twin—if I have one, that is—
She's
She’s just her own soulmate.

Revised version:

Just A Minute’s Soulmate

Dry lips pushed each other away
As boredom breathed down my neck
Creeping, crawling, being creepy
By making me a creep
I searched and stalked for a Facebook soulmate
And found one in just a minute.

I mean, I wasn’t even listening
To Just A Minute
And yet I found the stranger
Who shared my live life story
Word for word, on her own status
In exactly just a minute.

I told her via telepathy
I meant via Messenger
About how creepily
Facebook had crept me out

And no she did not believe me
So at length we both agreed
That she’s her own fraternal twin
And I, my sole soulmate


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