Playing with figurative fire, I did get psychologically burned

the fickle fate with befriending women online, which acquaintanceship just humming until out of the blue, the person who initially reached out mentions an urgent financial need such as NO internet -

Ivy (or spelled Ivie) Calista...

and the name Piper
fits in there somewhere
otherwise just another money grubbing,
no Paris sight, scam artist
nearly pulled the wool over my eyes.

The length people go
to drum up false pretenses
to glam themselves up
then ask for moolah

from an easily
(once burnt or bitten twice shy guy-
found me pulling out
my little violin) duped sexagenarian

(my experience includes

mainly women young at heart,
who sought the wit and wisdom
of a older brother figure,
but NOT rich Uncle Sam)

defies and dismays this married,
barbarian (ha - not really),
communitarian, latitudinarian,
nonestablishmentarian,
pennsylvanian, and Unitarian doofus,
who long since ceased
engineering liaisons
between myself and, albeit
another female (ideally
those flush with vim and vinegar),
not necessarily with or for benefits,
but who attests to being
an animal and book lover,
charismatic, dogmatically compassionate,
democratic, enigmatic,
fantastically humanistic,
and the list goes on ad nauseam.

I (a married Caucasian)

no longer assiduously exerts
a proactive stance,
and possibly compromising
the priority to wife and
two grown daughters
who already affected them long term
courtesy selfish behaviour of mine,
whose kin folk
of mine probably felt stinted
(supply an ungenerous
or inadequate amount
of something such as time to someone),
though no more,
I swore off many moons ago
forsaking precious time posting
or answering countless
personal classified advertisements
(predominantly from Facebook Messenger,
whereby every female friend request
I foolishly accepted)
unlike back in the day
when Craigslist ranked
as a reputably safe
virtual place to strike up
even just a platonic
acquaintanceship with a veritable stranger,
where a one time blind date
(even after openly talking about adultery,
and now rue the abomination -
as a sinner in the hands
of an angry god �" or as
close to one a Unitarian can get)
usually turned the tide
against further fraternization,
but back in the good old days
(say early 2000's)

that website offered
gradations of friendships/
relationships, and unfortunately
got a bad rap when serious
or even deadly deeds
done dirt cheap
induced the founder
(Craig Newmark) to withdraw
the menu of choices
from casual to intimate,
when a slew of perpetrators
inflicted violent and base sic lee,
horribly, unforgivably, undeservedly atrocious
(you get the idea) brutality against
an unsuspecting woman.

This self anointed
masterful Schwenksville scribe
(born January xvii,mcmlix)
loves to wax (wickedly,
which he did in utero),
and wane (moon huff fish hint lee)
rhapsodically plus prosaically political
doth not waver when sharing
his opinion about
the severe erosion
of American democracy
over run by at least one narcissistic
over stuffed ego-freezer,
whose vocabulary extremely laconic
as a swashbuckling braggadocio
commander in chief,
not gun shy to brandish
(hugely bully like)
jingoistic tirade unleashing
horrific banshees
more'n 10,000 foo fighting maniacs
(dead set against the nemesis of liberty)
fatalistic to sanctity
of United States democracy
feeble and futile attempts
even from the Republican party
throw back at him bigly,
his woeful treachery,
quasi xenophobic, tragic,
and misogynistic lunatic bred anarchy.

Asper burbling, gurgling,
and unwittingly nearly mangling my marriage
and rapport with offspring,
I trend towards tmi
(not Three Mile Island,
but sharing to much information)
about himself, an ordinary
handy-dandy blues clue
retaining and involving
his liberal-minded ideologies,
but one characteristic
about him etched indelibly
within lxvii year old noggin
refuses to be dislodged
from deep into
the nooks and crannies
of fist-sized gray matter.

Extreme shyness

(forever diminished

courtesy a steady
diet of powder milk biscuits),

but more pertinently

emotional, physical and
social emotional and development

(regarding interpersonal) interactions,

he withdrew from largesse of life,

and kept an analogous

invisible short lease

restraining ordinary

predilections to develop.

Even now, at the time
of epistemological foray,
a lingering imprimatur,
where what ought
to be the natural ability
to commune, fraternize,
and integrate oneself
among classmates
(higher and/or lower academic peers)
found yours truly
fraught with extreme psychological duress.

Only recently did this
three score plus seven
ambling, bumbling, cavorting,
doodling dude evince factors
generating mental health issues

jangling internal hemorrhaging
of mine psyche.