#numbers
I spent last night
Crunching numbers
10
Times you led me on
9
Nights we stayed up talking
8
Weeks since you decided I wasn’t worth it
7
Crushed up poems on the floor of my room
6
Outfits thrown aside to make sure I look my best
5
Days I spent trying to get over you
4
Friends that know what we did
3
3 a.m FaceTime calls
2
Coats of mascara
1
Big regret
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 6:02 PM UTC
I, a woman of letters, have been waiting for you, a man of numbers. I’ve been fantasizing of the day when you would deliver at the porch of my heart your algebraic equation. The x’s and y’s merged systematically with all the symbols, forming an indelibly inked pattern that would finally make sense. I have been waiting and hoping and praying, but all I’ve got so far are your invalid equations, the confusion, the uncertainties, the unsolvable mathematical sentence that I want so desperately unscrambled. How can you not, in your genius, find the right equation, even as I now try to draft a coherent verse?
for j.e.
013115
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 11:03 AM UTC
It's all just numbers, isn't it?
Day by day,
Year by year,
Always counting.
Day by day look at the number on the scales.
Let the caloric calculator count until your head is filled with numbers.
Minute by minute count the seconds it takes for him to text you back.
Let the doubt and fear multiply until your head is full of him.
Term by term let a percentage on a piece of paper define your worth.
Don't we have better things to do than count?
Apr 9, 2019
Apr 9, 2019 at 11:07 AM UTC
A steady minded person might tell you that everything can be measured, calculated and converted into a language of black and white, solutions worked out with sharpened pencils.
How do I measure my heart breaking?
Tell me,at what rate did my heartstrings snap when he told me he was leaving?
How long until all of my broken bones turn into dust?
Calculate at what speed the tears rolled down my checks.
How many doctors will it take to sew my heart back together?
Was it when he crumpled me up like a wasted idea etched onto a piece of notebook paper that everything started to bleed?
What part of my brain did his gentle hands touch that woke my monsters from their slumber?
How many days until this aching in my swollen chest turns into a gentle throb?
When will I be okay again?
Takes this pain and your sharpened pencils and rip the numbers from the dead hands of his name. Do away with the emotion like he did away with me.
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 9:54 PM UTC
Others type a simple "<3"
What I type is "<352628"
They ask me what does the other numbers represent and I just say "I dont know"
But deep down I know
That it's complicated
I'm complicated
My heart is complicated
- MMM
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 12:18 AM UTC
If I wanted to describe you,
I would need to learn
To write in numbers
For there are only
Twenty-six
Letters in the alphabet
But an
Infinity
Of numbers
And I would need every one of them,
Just to describe you
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 11:33 PM UTC
you toss my feelings back and forth like a tennis ball.
It was so asinine to think you cared at all.
you make it out like you wanna meight, but end up stealing
my heart, which isn't condusev in my healing.
You make me six. With me, you didn't have a rival.
I used to think you were necessary for my surfivel.
therefour, from here on, I won't allow you to crush me,
no more threel seeing my reaction when you touch me.
I don't understand people who just get together
to make you think you won and blow you off like a feather.
I half had enough and this topic's not moot,
I have zeroed in on my target and i am ready to shoot.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 9:42 PM UTC
Ten
Tears that fell
Nine
Half hearted oh wells
Eight
Sleepless nights
Seven
Silent screams
Six
Simple scratches
Five
Days left
Four
Depressive thoughts
Three
Anxious ones
Two
Ugly options
One
Last chance
Zero
No more, she's gone
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 7:28 AM UTC
She used to tell me
of math and poetry
by the length of her arm
and rhythm of her heart
conversing verse and fraction
with form following the function
of communist theories
and greek philosophies.
she beat out aesthetics
with a perfect symmetry.
because no one understands
the relationship between
seafoam and shoreline
the way she does
[swimming in saltwater sorrows]
reimagining time in an hourglass,
she shot up infinities with a glance
and left me moondrunk in the night.
she emits sparks throughout my system
breaking and entering--
my kingdom under siege.
her name was an amalgam of numbers
italic1.6180399. . . .italic
and I loved her by design.
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 10:18 AM UTC
I count each number,
The calories drowning me.
And I just can’t float.
Apr 28, 2022
Apr 28, 2022 at 10:05 AM UTC
*Two tables apart,
Two books on your hand,
Two persons in love behind me,
Two dark brown eyes gazing at me
As my two big eyes stared back.
You took two steps forward
When you lean two inches closer,
Two hearts beat in rhythm.
Then you said those two words,
Two words that normal people say
But when you said those two words,
As if two worlds crushed down on me.*
"Hi love."
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 11:34 PM UTC
*Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.*
Depression of Science
Believe in possible
achieve the probable
accept the inevitable
laws are boundaries..
*Oh, those sprinkle's shards
they hug the lamplight so?*
Possible, they believe me
Laws, condor, deceiving...
Fate enviable acceptance
-evening
Akha, Okto, Echo, Eight-
*Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.*
Was it one or eight?
I
ate
One
then
Eight?
118
1118
1118
11118
111118
8
**Shhhh...you hear that?
...there's something in the closet...**
it's like a
ant on crack
a ant on
Crack
it's like a
ant on crack
a ant on
ANT ON CRACK
nano,
-Crack
it's like a
ant on crack
ANT ON CRACK
ant on
Crack
ant on
Crack
ant on
Crack
ant on
Crack
it's like a
ANT ON CRACK
..fingertips in heaven
Heaven's a construct,
by a carpenter and a drywaller....
and a painter...
Controlled by
Home's Despotism
*Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.*
*Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.*
*Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.
Bouncy, swirly, colors see me.*
it's like a
* ANT ON CRACK *
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 8:16 PM UTC
What is beautiful
About reality
Is what is beautiful
About math
There are
Many things
That have happened
The things that have
Produced this moment
Are at most times
ASTRONOMICAL
Meaning so big
It renders itself
Incomprehensible
Yet.. it happened
Even if the
Numbers against
Stand taller than
The daisy itself
Ever could
It still remains
In the meadow
For you and I
To see
Sep 30, 2022
Sep 30, 2022 at 4:55 PM UTC
Like this if you see it.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 4:41 AM UTC
My hands still ache –
I’m convinced it’s my atoms splitting
No one asked me how I got addicted –
They said the focus was on quitting
But I’m here in the present
So I must have a had a past
It’s too bad “Where’d you come from”
Is a question never asked.
I went through hell to get here
So it should matter where I’m from
I tell them “it should matter what I’ve seen…
It should matter what I’ve done.”
He then responded like a father and began his sentence, “Son…
It’s the shock, not the trauma, that makes the body the numb.”
He said, “The thing you search is silence.”
“And yet you let your monsters drum.”
You start to figure things out. You know --
When you’re locked up all that time.
But you learn not from what you’re taught,
Instead, you learn from what you find.
And I found mine in the written word,
I found it in a rhyme.
Numbers always helped me think, so I looked for something to count
And as I pondered that man’s words, the room’s only light went out.
So I counted the only thing that I could feel aside from air,
And his seven words made sense, as I counted the one thing
That in the dark was always there.
I’m my own favorite number, so I began counting,
“One…”
But this time I didn’t count to two.
And the monsters didn’t drum.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t rely on someone else
For the first time, in the dark, I counted on myself.
I then knew why “Where’d you come from” was never asked --
Both they and I lived in the present; we couldn’t act upon the past.
It doesn’t matter where you came from, or even why you’re here.
For your past dictates your penance, but the present is your frontier.
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 1:21 PM UTC
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Fi-
Or...
Was...
It
four?
Better
start
again,
being
safe..
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Start
Again.
Counting.
Every.
Single.
Thing.
Here.
Cracks.
Wait?
How
long
was
that
there?
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Scratching.
Poking.
Prodding.
Anxiety
makes
me
tick.
Breathe.
One.
Out.
Two.
Breathe.
Three.
Out.
Four.
Breathe.
Five.
Out.
Six.
Breathe.
Seven.
Haiku.
Seven.
Five.
Sev-
Five.
Seven.
Five.
Seven
Doesn't
Have
Seven
Freaking
Numbers
Crap.
That
was
six.
Need
to
revise.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Ignore
it.
But
I
Can't.
You
can.
But
I
simply
don't
have
the
strength.
I
just
can't
stop
ticking
right
now.
Help
me.
Gonna
drown
and
die.
Save
me.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Now
it's
too
late
to
save
me.
The
numbers
have
already
won
this
one.
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 1:35 PM UTC
They print their lives on a price tag,
Those big fat numbers,
All they do is brag.
My daughter’s a neurosurgeon,
Graduated from Johns Hopkins,
Saving lives by the hundreds.
My son a number-crunching accountant,
A career that keeps his wallet thick,
And his pockets filled.
They wonder what I do,
I tell them I work with words.
They gasp,
Eyes widen.
I tell them that,
I can count the spaces between adjacent letters in a word,
String words together to build a sentence,
Layer each sentence above another like bricks,
Place a single powerful mark of punctuation in between,
The glue that holds the bricks intact and forms a wall.
A wall of stanzas,
Connected by commas and semicolons.
A wall of paragraphs,
Big enough to block numbers out.
Because words fill souls while numbers fill pockets.
Words are immeasurable.
Infinite.
Nov 8, 2018
Nov 8, 2018 at 11:22 AM UTC
~
not a fan of reality TV,
plenty of "unreal" episodes
of my own direction stored,
available for further review
in the storage units of
neuronic black and white prison brain cells
which is why I have free~will chosen
to enumerate my poem~videos;
for easy retreat retrieval resurrection
of the travelogue of mind own insurrections
*a garage of mobility devices,
car, rollerblades, cross country skis plus,
a potpourri of escape methodologies
that by definition are all round trippers,
returned to their storage unit after use
and I count them Noah~like,
two by two, as they come on board,
and when they disembark for days of
rest and recreation*
this one, #4,
is born
among headstones,
just anther memory storage unit
specialized,
flag decorated,
but different
This is a one-way,
no return,
unit
but
it can be viewed at anytime
by those who care to be users,
by speaking this:
*Read to me poem number four,
on a day we celebrate,
about free men of every color and persuasion,
who are calling out to
open the door to storage unit four,
so we to can perform
our once-a-year
Tour of Duty
to the those who called,
and answered with limb and love,
for by their glory,
we are
free too*
to remember in any way we choose
~
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
our lives are fraught with numbers
so many fractions of a second faster in a race
most wins on record best jury votes
highest flight deepest dive most goals
meters of rising sea levels
millions of refugees and more displaced
tens of thousands honor killings
thousands of deaths with Ebola
millions of Zika virus victims next year
billions of deficit or profit in import/export
or the stock exchange
votes in elections or for beauty queens
polls tweets virtual friends & followers
likes on the social media on hellopoetry
we have been taught to measure our status
our importance and the significance of our lives
in clicks of other peoples’ digital devices
even our time has been reduced to numbers
the digital has long replaced the comprehensive
instead of the round dial that shows 12 hours
suggesting the duration of a normal day
we have a punctual display without the whole
the cyclical has lost against the linear
0101010101010101010101010101010101
we all look forward to our numbered future
no past and very little present
our hands on smart phones homes TVs
pushing a button makes things move
swishing a screen displays the world
over all that we easily forget
that we ourselves have been reduced to numbers
of customers for businesses
of voters for the politicians
of workers for the corporations
of citizens for our nations
digital quantities we have become
and if we take a global view
we are part of the seven billion plus
that currently inhabit our earth
all of which do expect their individuality
be honored and their dignity respected
numbers don’t honor individuality
they simply count the units
items or people are for them the same
it’s left to us to find a way
that leaves the numbers in their place
yet guarantees us dignity
as individual members of the human race
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 6:19 PM UTC
Look out here
It comes
Sum of someone's sums
Perverse calculation
Trigonometry as sensation
Graphic illustration
Of a pre-ordained mathematic
Desire
Intersexual intellectual
Pythagorean triangle of lust Figures
Add and attract
Add and subtract
Add and subtract
This physical abstract
To form the total goal
To fit the math of a
Human hole
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 6:15 PM UTC
your grades do not define you
your grades do not define
your grades do not
your grades do.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM UTC
1. if i knew where to get drugs, i'd be a ******
2. sure, my ribs are visible, but what of it?
3. i lose myself in dreams at night and during algebra ii
4. i'm in lust with a girl with a boyfriend
5. or maybe i'm just paranoid
6. i'm lonely in these cinderblock walls
7. i find myself again under stage lights
8. i'm homeless (although not in the traditional sense)
9. i know i'm loved but
10. when my friends laugh with their other friends, it's about me
11. or maybe i'm just paranoid
12.if i lose it, who will visit me in the hell known as 'psychiatric ward'?
13. i can't hold my own in a fight because i cry into my wounds
14. besides, i don't write anymore
15. what is there to write about besides love and insanity anyway?
16. my demons visit this safe haven and desecrate it
17.their names are sarah kate and victoria
18. or maybe i'm just paranoid
19. but i swear i didn't name the voices inside my head
20. i make endless lists of things that don't matter
21. to do, to buy, to cry about, to write about
22. so i close my eyes when i sing
23.or maybe i'm just paranoid
24. and you hated this poem but
25. maybe i'm just paranoid
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 10:40 AM UTC
I'm running on the playground of life,
There are so many ways
This can go, to what end,
People hop scotching
Numbers
Squares
In-between,
The lines never told you that the squares
Are fate never moving off one
Or landing on Ten, its a game of
Chance, will you jump
Or stay safely on the footing
The square your on now,
Then there they are those
You know you see them playing
With the rope, around it goes
Skip,
Jump,
Fall,
Jumping over life's troubles,
The more you jump the
Faster
It
Goes
You get caught in the troubles,
"Life isn't now skipping along"
It takes your feet from underneath
Now your just hanging
Feet off the ground
Life,
Death,
Regret,
The rope ends the troubles
The noose tightened
And the troubles
Were last moments
Now you are still,
We will play many games
"Running On The Playground Of Life"
Just don't fall, don't get out of your depth,
Life is for living some games are better left.
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 4:21 PM UTC
over a year since we met
i havent been counting the days because numbers dont matter
happiness cant be measured in millismiles or kilolaughs
we are infinite
all the bad friends we lost < the value of us (infinite)
lonely feelings because of you < the times we had fun (infinite)
dreamless feelings because of you < all our jokes (infinite)
our year is infinite
our following years are infinite
everyone else is just a negative number
and all i can
think right now
is **** them all!!!
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 11:00 AM UTC