Once I dated a woman I only liked 43%.
So I only listened to 43% of what she said.
Only told the truth 43% of the time.
And only kissed with 43% of my lips.
Some say you can’t quantify desire,
attaching a number to passion isn’t right,
that the human heart doesn’t work like that.
But for me it does-I walk down the street
and numbers appear on the foreheads
of the people I look at. In bars, it’s worse.
With each drink, the numbers go up
until every woman in the joint has a blurry
eighty something above her eyebrows,
and the next day I can only remember 17%
of what actually happened. That’s the problem
with booze-it screws with your math.
-Jeffrey McDaniel
I’m in a bad place.
Self-pity and hatred have been part of me for so long that I no longer notice their existence.
It seems odd that someone so filled with self-anger would be so selfish.
Am I that bad of a person?
Am I that selfish?
I have hated myself for so many years without paying that much attention to who I was.
I’m tired of being so angry at myself.
I’m in a bad place, but I’ll come out.
I hate to give up.
I will change.
Diary of a Broken Heart
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
-Jeffrey McDaniel
