And I will go,

because latent in every blind date is the delicious promise,

improbable as a hundred-dollar bill in a fortune cookie,

that maybe this is the last one of these things I will have to go on, maybe this will be it.

 jessicapierce 
 

 

 

 

Latent is 

and always will be about 

hope

 

it is: 

staying after class for a chance at a conversation with someone who has never talked to you before 

writing long letters and sliding them under the door of a dorm room because you think her roommate is out of town 

idling in a car in front of a restaurant

 

waiting,  hoping,  wondering if

 

maybe this time it happens

the unspoken secret code is shared and

doors

 

 

 

open 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La"tent (?), a. [L. latens, -entis, p. pr. of latere to lie hid or concealed; cf. Gr. , E. lethargy: cf. F.latent.]

Not visible or apparent; hidden; springs of action.

The evils latent in the most promising contrivances are provided for as they arise. Burke.

Latent buds bot., buds which remain undeveloped or dormant for a long time, but may at length grow. Latent heat Physics, that quantity of heat which disappears or becomes concealed in a body while producing some change in it other than rise of temperature, as fusion, evaporation, or expansion, the quantity being constant for each particular body and for each species of change. -- Latent period. (a) Med. The regular time in which a disease is supposed to be existing without manifesting itself. (b) Physiol. One of the phases in a simple muscular contraction, in which invisible preparatory changes are taking place in the nerve and muscle. (c) Biol. One of those periods or resting stages in the development of the ovum, in which development is arrested prior to renewed activity.

 

© Webster 1913.

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