The Mathematics of Almost

Intro

Mm-hmm

Mm

(ah-ah)

Verse 1

I caught a thought undressing in the hallway of my head

It wore the face of something I had never quite said

I asked it for a reason. It requested better light

Then sold me back my silence at an existential price

There's a little mathematician counting raindrops in my skin

While a Buddha made of cigarette smoke asks who let the weather in

And I keep finding tiny doors where ordinary words have been

But every time I open one, the room begins again

Spoken

Mm. The room begins again

Which is a polite way of saying

I have been evicted by my own furniture

(evicted by my own furniture)

Ha

Verse 2

A friend once told me time is just a rumor that the clocks agreed to spread

I believed her for an hour then forgot what she had said

There's a woman in my kneecap doing taxes on a spoon

And she keeps insisting Tuesday is arriving far too soon

Spoken

Too soon. Too soon

I once loved a semicolon

(too soon)

It held two thoughts together

And never asked which one was truer

(never asked)

Breakdown

I am thinking faster than the sentence can arrive

(I am thinking)

Something about a bee that learned geometry

And used it to build a slightly wrong hexagon

And everyone applauded

And nobody checked the angles

(nobody checked)

Spoken

The double bass just disagreed with me

Which is fair

Which is very fair

I have been wrong since the accordion

(ha)

Verse 3

My grandmother's obituary listed her hobbies as forgiveness and arithmetic

Which I have never quite been able to reconcile

A doctor asked me once what hurts and I said the concept of a Tuesday

And he wrote it down

And he wrote it down

Spoken

He wrote it down

I respect a man who writes it down

(writes it down)

There is a kind of honesty in taking notes on nonsense

I am becoming an expert

In the mathematics of almost

Bridge

Maybe the spoon knows

Maybe the spoon always knew

Maybe the glass was empty

But the tapping was the truest thing I did all week

(all week)

Spoken

I keep inventing words

For the feeling of almost remembering

Something that never happened

Call it unremembering

(ha)

Call it unremembering

That is a terrible word

I am keeping it

Outro

The piano is making several excellent points

(points)

I concede

I concede

I have been arguing with it for forty years

And it has been right

It has been right the whole time

Mm

Ha

(ha)

Mm