Other Half

"How’s your other half?"

You can get two responses to that question:

What, somehow I’m not whole without another?

I’d be happy with an eighth,

I can’t live on my own, not good enough for myself?

Joyous at a seventh, a sixth, a fifth

You telling me I need somebody else?

Let alone a fourth

Being single is somehow inferior?

But a half you must be joking!

Sometimes I think like this:
Half of me, wouldn’t be much at all
how could I hold in thrall, someone greater -
and the sum would be less than the whole,

and other times it goes:
Surely being nice can be rewarded,
I’m not that emotionally retarded,
why can’t I get something started?

And then someone else says
from the back of the mind
"Who cares?"