Math

The one subject that I wish didn’t exist

These numbers, they hate me, drive me insane!

Why do they exist? They literally are labels and math should die.

Height, weight, bills, days, years, decades- enough!

My curtain is made of numbers.

How could I reach for something so repulsive,

So disgusting, gut-wrenching, insanely hideous

Inevitably horrible, terrifyingly capricious-

And still turn out-

Okay-

so here’s the deal, curtain.

I’ll get a fan and turn it towards you

All you have to do is move,

WAIT NO-not spray your filth all over me!

Dang it, now there’s 42 on my chest

250 on my forehead

A 9 on my shoe

All these imperfections, you’ve ruined my look.

I couldn’t escape you now if I tried

I’d walk out and look like a fool

A joke of life, a goof of society

They’ll all look and laugh.

That’s when dementia will set in

And instead of people, I’ll see numbers

1 is curled on the ground, hysterical

42 is having fits, trying to keep balance

666 is bellowing, howling and hooting

And his wife, 777, has turned away, snickering.

I’ll turn and try to run

But then I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the window of a store

And in it, I’ll see 0.

In an instant, a glint of light casts my shadow

Showing an odd shape. I look;

There’s a one connected to my side, can’t be pulled off.

I fold it out, like a wing expanding

And look in the window again.

10.

It’s then that I will realize

Math isn’t so bad.

They were laughing because I couldn’t see myself,

Laughing because I hadn’t gotten to my full potential.

Math isn’t so bad…

On a scale of 1 to 9, I’m a ten.

But scales are math so who cares-

And that 250 on my forehead is gone

I kicked the 9 off my shoe

And the 42 is under my jacket.

Right then I’ll realize that numbers don’t matter

They don’t make me, they just make equations

And I am not an equation.

I am complicated, hard to understand, confusing, and sometimes a little illogical

But I am not math. Not a number.

And curtains close, but they can open too.

Hello, my name is Rebecca Hope Boyd Laxton, and

I don’t care about numbers.