i.

If I could, I would tie promises around
each and every one of your fingertips, so that
the next time you scale the side of a mountain,
and begin to feel your grip slowly melting away
from between the cracks of the earth, as gravity
nudges you to take the long way down,

you would remember that there are hands
waiting to catch you if you do take that fall,
and realize that the strongest ropes are those
with kerns wreathed in the heartstrings of first love,
and a mantle webbed in the colors of daybreak
and the hopes carried by new tomorrows.

ii.

If I could, I would write love letters
across your arms, so that the next time
you feel as if the world is taking so much
more than you could give, and your hands
have nothing left to hold but pieces crumbled
under the weight of pain and frustration,

you would see the words carefully pulled out
one by one from the splintered chest of a girl
who once held you in her arms, and remember
that someone’s heart still beats to the syllables
of your name, and that the ink never dries out
as long as the writer never stops writing.

iii.

If I could, I would tuck metaphors
behind your ears, so that the next time
you try to swallow your sorrows, and end up
locking yourself away in a lonely silence
trapped with the words you want to say
and deprived of those you need to hear,

you would slowly make out the tides of life
crashing against the shore in cadence with
the ebb and flow of ‘I’m okay’ and ‘I’m not’,
and allow your burning reality to be painted over by
the full spectrum of love and loss, give and take —
finding beauty even in the fault in our stars.

iv.

If I could, I would wrap your heart in a blanket
woven with raw poetry and tender lullabies,
so that the next time you come home late
from a long day at work, and collapse on a mattress
as cold as the words ‘good’ and ‘night’ gone stale
after being left to dry on the empty side of the bed,

you would drift into a dream sweeter
than laughter and stardust drizzled all over
our fondest memories, and wake up to the sunlight
spilling meaning back into ‘good’ and ‘morning’,
as you start the day taking in all the warmth
of being loved and of always being loved.

Just before logging off for the day,
and ready to boogie out of the joint
an email landed squarely in my inbox
cordially inviting me
into the management office
accompanied by the buzz of my cell phone:
(cue the sound of ominous music):
I unexpectedly got called
expecting to be handed a pink slip
(if you catch me drift)
suddenly my heart beat a mile a minute
and palms of hands
perspired like a wet dish rag
expecting to experienced a chop job
expecting to be chewed out by a hack
after rapping lightly on the door
before heading into the office by my namesake.

Even before taking a seat
an onslaught of rapid fire babbling besieged me
as way of introduction,
when receiving most recent assignment
for Matthew Scott Harris (me),
communicated by amiable chap
who interestingly enough
shared being christened
with exact same birth name as mine.

Rather than attempt to scribble
fast speaking mile a minute
brilliantly frenzied novel theme
prior experience taught being prepared
to stow digital dictation devices.

Upon readying recording device
to playback at my leisure,
I dramatically signaled to him
to repeat speaking, albeit ideally
at 78 rotations per minute (RPM)
while fingers of mine
lightly, yet impatiently
drummed upon the table
awaiting significantly more succinct delivery,
(yet bracing to be saddled
with what I expected
to be impossible mission
even for the stalwart
Peter Graves body double)
renown for his fast talking verbal outcome
concerning next poetic endeavor,
yet to borrow a football analogy
the writer of these word needed
self restraint less primed and prone
to block and tackle from him.

The moment he started speaking,
I then immediately ceased tapping sound
anticipating far out and groovy
prompting me to hang loose
able, eager, ready, and willing
to synthesize his incomprehensible jibber jabber,
which hopped out outburst
spurred me to ask him to talk slower
finding myself issuing imprecations
as he blithely ignored minor plea of mine
and quickly resumed chattering away
with animation, excitation, and irritation
bypassing feeble attempts of mine
mindlessly buzzfeeding and brainstorming,
an experienced "aha moment,"
thence he immediately explained
to yours truly (me) the idea,
which will hopefully be clearly expressed
courtesy the following poem.

Though instinctively writing
countless bureaucratic reports
(but more particularly typing),
never did especial attention
get paid to the particular nuances
(never mind the terms)
of kerning and tracking
that got brought to my attention
after being informed courtesy
(as iterated above) my namesake.

Kerning developed
during the era of metal typesetting,
where the term "kern" referred
to the part of a metal letter
that extended beyond its body,
allowing for closer spacing
between certain letter combinations,
making it a manual process
where typographers would physically adjust
the spacing between individual characters
by hand to achieve a visually pleasing result;
essentially, kerning has been around
since the early days of printing with metal type.

The French term originated
from the Latin cardo, cardinis, meaning "hinge."

In the days when all type was cast metal,
the parts of a typecasting sort
that needed to overlap adjacent letters
simply hung off the sort slug's edge.

Those overhanging metal pieces were called kerns.

Tracking is a similar process
to kerning that focuses
on the spacing between all letters in a word,
rather than just a few letters in a word.

Tracking is usually uniform,
meaning you apply an equal amount of space
between each letter
so that it doesn't look
too spaced out (how one feels
after getting loaded up) or too tight.

Tracking is the process of loosening
or tightening a block of text to make it look hip.

For most general writing purposes,
the "best" lead type considered to be HB
(medium hardness), as it offers a good balance
between heart of darkness and smoothness
while minimizing smudging,
making it suitable for everyday use
across different writing surfaces.