Archimedes claims, 'The shortest distance

between two points is a straight line',

but you sit at the apex of some bell curve,

balanced like a tightrope walker;

a symmetry I could never replicate.

So here I lay, fumbling with the

Pythagoras theorem to find the

shortest escape route in a room that

refuses to behave like a right-angled triangle.

You strive to fathom Fermat's last theorem,

while I tint my nails maroon and

wrap my grief in my pastel tainted hands,

perhaps Fermat didn't account for

dejections like these—or lives like mine.

In another universe, ladybugs nestle

in your hair, Monte Carlo trials beneath

my mitts, predicting the next crimson spot.

But here, the Euler's identity collapses,

Möbius strips winding around my

diverging heart,

now, I loathe the geometry of your

reflective eyes and the pattern of

your fractal scars,

now, I abhor the perfect ratio of your

beloved cake—under the candles of my day.

In every other universe,

I fabricate you a paper edifice,

which perishes owing to the warmth of

your glintwine.

In every other universe,

the infinity of your fading footprints

is always bigger than my infinity

of leaving doors open.