3rd Grade Math - 04/04/11

I hardly recognize
The old school division sign
The x we used to use
To multiply
They’ve all been replaced by
More neatly spaced
Symbology
The new cryptography
For me to decipher

And whatever happened to 3rd grade math?
Well, I can tell you,
It’s a thing of the past,
Because my little brother,
7 time 2 years old
Can’t divide.
And when I heard that
Something in me died,
Because I remember when I first learned
That 5 time 5
Is the area of a square
With a 5 cm side
Something clicked inside.

See, I like math
Because I like my world to make sense
Because I like to understand
And the surest
Purest
Truest way I can see to do that
Is to add, subtract, multiply and divide
I like to integrate and differentiate
So I can explicitly calculate
The persistent existence of
e and pi.

Or tau,
For those of you who may think it’s more accurate
And who may not hold
The same sentimental value
As I do on that number.

I remember the first veil
Lifting when I was eight
As I learned how to calculate
Combinations and permutations
Although I did not quite yet
Experience the sensation
Of fully understanding
Those implications.
That came later.

But each small step
Has been a building block
To this big picture
To where I can see the world
In equations
And if I know the luscious curve
That built your head,
Why, I could find the area of your face

So maybe you can almost understand
How my reactions
Can sometimes get out of hand
When I realize
That my little brother,
7 time 2 years old,
Can’t divide.

But, then,
There’s this girl,
Who is also 7 time 2 years old
Who is at the same level of math
As others in my class
With a calculator in her brain
Able to instantaneously retain
Any combination of numbers
Add, subtract, multiply, divide


I am in love
With the beautiful, sweeping S
Of the limit sun,
With the big wide curves
Next to their skinny little tangent lines.
With the singsong quotient rule
I repeat when I’m stressed,
I repeat when working on homework
That is boring
Or when I wish is was sleeping
But am instead up so late repeating
The singsong quotient rule,
So that makes it alright.

Sometimes, I wish that
The more strange
And more easily changed
And constantly rearranged
Classes, like English and physics,
Were all purely math

And I like long math problems
Tangles of numbers, letters, and signs
That stretch a whole page,
And pull me in
To a half hour
Of scrambling through its maze
And then, upon reaching the finish
That exquisite exhale
Of complete knowledge,
Perfect understanding,
Supreme control
Of the universe
That is governed by those
Long lines of numbers, letters, and symbols.

So you who speak a different language
Like English,
Let me say, as clearly as I can,
That I love mathematics.
And for you how do speak my first language:
M times A to the power of TH,
Is equal to the integral of
e to the x times y.

Why Did You Do It? - 04/04/11

Although I’ve been told that
just because you can
doesn’t mean you should,
I did it because I could.
From choking and rough,
ripping my throat like sandpaper
to a vacuum of openness,
space stretching out
beyond my lungs’ reach.
Cloudless denim skin
sprinkled with lemon cream,
little star shaped sour dollops.
Reflected in that shimmering sky
beautiful, benevolent, brave, bold,
stood on tall legs,
with a head held up.
I did it to meet her.
She promised with glitter dipped words
that there was freedom,
that the world was open,
that there was air.
I would sneak out again
to find her perfect reflection,
if only I could.
I did it because I knew
I could never again.
I did it to breathe.

Who and At - 04/03/11

He says something about words
And the number of them
With the sad music
Purposefully linger in the background
Just loud enough
For its tone
To suck little rays of my soul
Into its dark density
With general relativity equations
And visions of my body
Crushed
Mangled
And thrown away
All floating through my mind
On the same level
As his words about words
And the number of them
In a certain time.

Frequency.
In the past ten minutes,
It has apparently been four.
I don’t bother to check,
I know that aggression
Drives me to make perfectly calculated points,
As well.

It’s not that I’m trying not to talk to him,
Just that I’m trying not to say certain things,
That can never just be said,
Because of the questions,
And the demands to
“Continue.”
It can’t just be let out
In little bursts.
No, everything must be contained
Until I
“Need to vent?”

There is no one to whom I can say:
“I feel like dying,”
And just have that be how I’m feeling,
As common place as
“Fine” or “Okay” or “Well.”
I have no one who will let me say:
“All my current thoughts involve
My death
And a lot of blood”
And just have that be it,
No questions,
No worries,
No weird looks,
Just acceptance.

It’s true enough, though,
That I couldn’t do that for anyone else.
If someone so slightly puts themselves down,
Even a complete stranger,
I have to help,
Be encouraging,
Try to make them feel better.

But is it not acceptance
That makes us feel the best?
Understanding and love,
Just the way we are,
Happy or not,
Fine or not,
Okay, or not?



I realized today,
That the best friend I’ve ever had,
Is the one who has only recently
Been called “my best friend!”
Where were you all my sad life?
Where were you to make fun of me
When I asked the hairdresser
For side-bangs
That I could hide behind?
Where were you to speak softly
As I sat alone at lunch,
Too scared to make new friends?
For the acceptance you have given me,
Even just so recently,
Thank you,
My best friend.

Seeing vs. Believing - 04/03/11

My skin stands prickly,
On end,
As I type so lightly,
Write so brightly,
Sounds as if I’m smiling
As I say words
As I complain
As I hint at an explanation
For the thoughts in my brain

There’s blood
On the words
Dried and old
Hidden
Missed
Because we hear
What we want to
Our brains make things make sense,
Match lip movement with sounds,
Match memories with reality,
Match words others say
With our own thoughts.

So I’m thinking
That I don’t really know anymore
Whether green is green
And whether you say
What you mean
And whether you say
What you say

What I hear,
Although it seems so clear,
Could easily be yellow sunlight,
Not red blood,
So the fact that all I see is blood
Is probably
Completely
In my head.

Malice could be friendly,
And friendly could be cruelty
And every long moment
Could be short.
So what do I know anymore?

Nothing.
Not even the color of the grass
All I have are assumptions
That things are supposed to
Make sense