The statistical analysis
of my second grade teacher
is that I am bad at mathematics
Drawings of stick figures in my math workbook
determines through algebraic calculations that
I will be a colossal failure
The adults gather around principal’s office
to think on how to erase and undo my doings and
through rules of inference conclude
on the number of black holes
of my future
The bald eagle of my imagination takes flight
on the hillside of Kamath Basin
Feather by feather, I pluck on memories
of all the old occurrences
In one I have failed my language test
In the other I fracture my big toe
trying to get better at doing a sport
One by one I pull the talons of expectations that have built my identity
And break the beak of ego that established me as an echo of my accomplishments
Slow yet steady the calculus of my renewing feathers, bring about an epiphany that the
zero-sum of life is nothing but an acronym—
for order of operations.
No matter the number I add to the parentheses
I will always end the equation of life with subtraction
Today, as crows from past come to peck mid flight
I go to that sullen girl standing in the school corridor with drawings of stick figures in her math workbook
I quietly whisper in her ear
Your quiet elevation at this tender age is way higher
than any trigonometric functions of this world.
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