Because I Failed Calculus by Rp Verlaine

Because where

we are or yet

to get to

that I can’t

quite

place the

here between

the denial or

acceptance

of love

desire doesn’t need

but invites until

it is

real or forgotten

knowing not

why or how

it can’t be

figured out

in the failed

mathematics of

the little time

we have to

live to love

and live again

knowing

one day we

won’t.

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Rp Verlaine lives and writes in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from City College and taught English in New York public schools until he retired. He has several collections of poetry including Damaged by Dames & Drinking (2017), Femme Fatales Movie Starlets & Rockers (2018), and Lies From The Autobiography 1-3 (2018-2020).