I often fear
That I am an odd number.
My parity being
So that I cannot exist
In a pair
Without serving as a disruption
To all involved.
I am a five
Drowning
In a sea of eights.
Sometimes I wonder
Why I do not etch
Five fresh tallies
Into my soft, lonely skin.
Watching the five new rivers
Run in red rivulets
Onto my bare, thirsty floor.
Or use up five shiny, new rounds
To decorate my already cold body
With brand new holes –
Ones people don’t need
To understand to see –
Until it is lowered into
A sixth.
My wax face
Made to look
As if I was put together
Rather than breaking
Into pieces
Scattering in five directions.
And then I remember:
Pip One.
I promised,
While huddled in the dark –
Enveloped in the decorated arms
Of an angel
Forsaken by most –
To stick around.
Pip Two.
I promised
My brother,
Barely finished
Being a babe,
To teach him
All I knew.
Pip Three.
I promised
A boy like me,
Only brighter,
I wouldn’t leave him,
Like everyone else.
Pip Four.
I promised
A boy
I don’t even like
I wouldn’t
If he wouldn’t.
Pip Five.
I promised
Myself.
Sometimes being
An odd number isn’t too bad.
Sometimes.
It gets better,
At least that’s what
Everyone seems to believe,
And maybe
I want to believe
It too.
I am not a five
Drowning
In a sea of eights.
Rather I grow
Into pi,
Stretching past
The bloody sky,
And the eyes that try
To look beyond it.
Just like everyone else.