I seem to have pissed on my own leg, hoping you’d get wet
but usually you were some oscillating distance away;
in vain I prayed that the further you’d go, the closer I’d get
to an aim that was true, or at least a target disinclined to stray.
Alas, you have your great gift for that magical math,
the exact ratio of distance to proper fondness of heart,
I suspect on your wall there’s a well-detailed graph,
it’s what keeps you so busy in the times we’re apart.
It’s the game, it’s the sport, it’s the prowess of will
that keeps you engaged in this war for my soul,
yours lost so long ago and replaced by mere skill
for seducing sweet things to feed your dark hole
which I’ve visited often and frankly, the lighting depresses
the ambiance suffers from smells of decay,
I’ve tripped far too often on unnamed ladies tresses,
so I’m leaving your absence and I’m staying away.
And I’d wish you great luck on all new calculations
but I doubt an equation exists that could satisfy you
and the counting I want now is of fresh palpitations
from the essential excitement of 1+1=2.
*This poem came about as I waited for my name to be called for brunch, I changed it to number because it suited the mathematical conceit that emerged. While waiting, I was reading an explanation for a poem called "The Grudge" by Jeffery McDaniel about resentment in which he claimed the poem explored "the old adage: pissing on yourself and expecting someone else to get wet." I had not heard this adage before, but feeling an uncomfortably damp resonance, I decided to explore this idea myself.
