Tell me how,
One person can divide into
Three perfectly psychotic sentiments
While still appearing to be whole

Tell me how
Multiplying your kindness only
Creates a rift between myself and patience
And ends with nights of contemplation followed by tumultuous
Back-and-forths with imaginary numbers

For I am no mathematician

I cannot find a solution to every concrete problem
I do not bother with equations or substitutes
I only skim the symbol, rewrite questions and leave the answers hanging in the air

Tell me why,
Subtracting victims from my life
Only added a murderous sentiment
To every repeating decimal that couldn’t find its’ place

Tell me why,
The quadratic formula is emblazoned in my memory
But everyone keeps throwing opposites at me
So forgetting whether to add or to subtract becomes hazy
And the square root gets suspended until next class, so the
Four drops off the plane, two goes insane, and
Letters lose their fictitious meanings

For I am no mathematician
Archimedes is finding the constant of my triangular coffin
While Newton is rolling in his gravity
Carl Gauss is busy laughing his *** off with fundamentals in his eyes and
Descartes keeps whispering incoherent Latin, migraines sprinting towards me
As if in a race

So don’t ask me
Whether or not you should divide by zero
Or whether it requires sine, cosine, or a tangent
My logic will not tell you anything you want to hear
I am through trying to piece together this imaginary puzzle
And I’ve had enough of playing this never-ending game
Because I’ve been through two continents, and 4 different states
And I still don’t know the meaning of my name.

For I am no mathematician
The only pie charts I am fond of,
have to do with sugar and preheating an oven to 450 degrees
And with every cubic centimeter
I start thinking of cubes of cheddar cheese


For I am no mathematician
I can’t graph a simple line
I don’t understand the dimensions of the polygon shown above
And I’m tired of wasting precious time

there's always cigarette smoke in my face everytime I'm in your car
and the sport station is always on
and we always talk about work
and how nothing happened to you
and how I made no money

there was cigarette smoke in my face when he stood next to me
and asked me if I was going out
and I tried not to look him in the eye and while staring at my throbbing feet and my scuffed shoes
like a shy ******
i said yes
and smiled a big real one
because yet again
i made no money

This is milk and honey
This is a testament
This is forgetting what your father looked like
This is spilling water down your shirt
This is letting your window plants die
This is drinking on an empty stomach
This is the smell of the tarmac
This is procrastination
This is an instagram of your shoes
This is feeling the blood drop to your feet
This is forgetting
This is remembering
This is lactic acid

The pull is strong and I feel it inside with every breath I take.

I press the tips of my fingers on my face. It’s marked with small dimple-like scars. My cheeks are flushed and the pink covers them in the dim light.

I am of the North and the East. I hold my own gaze. I buy my own groceries. I drink a lot of water.

And I only find rest at dawn. Only when I allow the quiet in. Only when I stop thinking of the sea, or the warships in the marina, or the crunching of the fresh snow beneath my feet. Glistening white in the afternoon, just like it was when I buried my gloves beneath a tree and got frost bite by the evening.

In the morning I throw my blankets off. I leave the heat off. Rejecting the warmth helps me grasp to myself more as I would need to do say through the day time any way. I cherish the feel of the cold linoleum and the dust gathering on tiles above the sink.

And then I look again upon my face and at my eyes and then my dry lips. Finger pads brush them too.

My blood smells of sand and my muscles ache each night with pain. Each vertebrae screams for her embrace, the palms of her hands to brush each shoulder blade in a passing remark. Through the early morning I let her pull me into the water and tell me that she’s near, no matter what. Eyes the color of sky.

My grandmother’s eyes are the color of the frigid ocean in the early spring sun. My mother’s are that of the amber wheat that grows by the train tracks.

I imagine that’s what the end tastes like. Where the universe waves goodbye.

And as I step into the shallows,

I run screaming.

Back into the woods. Into the shadows of the birch. Past the towering elms.

Rotted branches, to Marsh, to Grass, to Dust. To the dry, dry, Earth. Where his palms are rough and gentle.

Where he asks me to dance atop the salt flats. Flooded with burgundy wine. The cracks and scratches of our soles covered by the smell of alcohol and the reflection of the stars on our bruised and ****** feet. I see him at night, with age rolling over the lines by the corners of his eyes with such grace. Such talent. Such a distant pleasure.

Just as on the balcony. With imported cigarettes and glimmering lights surrounding us, I wish to push the East over the balcony. I wish it would forget me like the North.

The fragile North. So tender and passive, so cold and absent. Like the passing of a parent, or the peripheral of the friend.

I wish to be drowned in the turquoise eyes of the South

and in the scalding wine scented haze of the West.

I am of the blizzard and of the heat that dries out your throat in a matter of seconds. I live on commercial carpet and on ivory walls of the hospital doors.

When the cicadas find their voices, when the water laps at my feet like the sweat that trickles down my bare chest and my pink cheeks,

when my burgundy stained lips touch the cracked skin of your scarred dimples,

when my nails claw at your navy shirt, begging you to not let go.

That is when you can cut off my fingers,

so I may be touched by you instead.

Bathe me in hot water and hold me close.