Having considered your position and your circumstances,
I perceive that you need me to be wrong about this.
And suddenly, it makes sense why you are so concerned
With peripheral matters, such as my tone or my spelling,
Or my motives—or whether there may be some discoverable
Moral fault with me.

And if you keep searching, you will surely find something
To satisfy your need, for I am not perfect—
Which fact I had thought to be rather common knowledge,
Though you seem to count yourself as on the verge
Of some exciting discovery in the matter.

And now my imperfection is the basket into which
You seem to be putting most of your eggs at present,
In an attempt to gloss over the fact
That there might just be something wrong with you, too—
And that maybe, just maybe, I have managed
To put my finger on it.

But I wonder why we could not be partners
In weakness and truth alike.

NOTE: This poem is about the ad hominem dodge—which is largely misunderstood. Please read my old post about that here.