You said the practical man asked you
To take the time to carefully consider
If you need him.

You do not need him.
You know this.
You’ve demonstrated it
Before and during your time with him,
In living day to day well
Over the broad foundation of years.

In this you are more practical than him.
What is practical about the pragmatic man
Needing you
To need him,
And asking you to decide
If he need not need you anymore?

His equanimity falters.
It has leaned long your way
And now he pulls it back.
He hopes you will lean in
To his incomplete receding,
Closer to sharing keel.

His is a need he
Knows he can live without.
You are not wholly serving a function.
You exceedingly complicate a simple tool
For his sound construction.
You are not a sensible measurement,
Not a straight line
On a chart he can plot.
He knows this.
He knows you.
He wants this; he wants you.

You are mild and unruly
And he desires
Your mild and unruly
To lay bare and blunt with him,
Tamed only by you to assert itself.
He wants the willful ewe to choose.

He doesn’t need you.
He knows this now.
The need dissolves
Once recognized,
Leaving in its place
The vacuum
Of choice and desperation.
The void has revealed itself
All around him.
He cannot withdraw
from its unreasonable company,
So he needs to withdraw from you.
He has no choice
But to defer to yours.

Now you and I see it all around you too.
I cannot answer whether or not
He and you can have
What you know you do not need.

What he needs is you
To need whatever you need
And desire what you desire.
His ache is his impractical fire.
His fire does not warm him,
It it invites you to be warm.
He seeks another fire for his warmth,
Be it yours,
A fire he cannot start
Under a scaffold of dry twigs
In a heart of legible print
On paper torn to a second purpose,
A fire that does not emanate
From his spark.

He wants your impractical fire
To blaze its gentle way
whichever way it will.