Disequilibrium in Math

I craft pictures.

to stop panic.

Circles for cookies
Tallies for numbers
Surreptitiously
noticing the paper
next to mine.
verbs, numerals, nouns,
numbers.
Rational. Irrational.
Integers. Imaginary.
Gobblygook.

I hang my hair
to hide my tears.

DAMMIT I hate math,
Arithmetic, algebra, fractions,
decimals.
Thank God Percents
were hiding elsewhere on the number line.

HER algorithm marches
proudly across the page,
Triumphant in victory!
Conquering numbers with a pencil.

My x + 2 =/x +3

My numbers slump,
slid off the page,
disappearing lead,
wrapped in shame.

I never thought,
just never realized,
how much I could HATE
the alphabet.

Stabbing my ABC's,
skewering them with a pencil.
a(x +b) =

they murdered "a" for me.
they fenced it with parenthesis,
caged it with an "x".

Flee or fight.
I can't get past.
They pound like jungle drums
in my brain.
Blockade my synapses.
Hold hostage my dendrites.

II

For sum
the numbers tease and dance
with glee across bridges.
Waltzing, skip counting,
across the neocortex.
For sum being
hardwired, forged in whole numerals,
in the frontal cortex.
(the right side of the parietal lobe)
a crown.

Others see numbers
as a collapsing bridge,
misfiring,
sending smoking trails,
hiding paths.
that don't exist in brain.

III

Making Sense

The nose is raw,
eyes cried out
Embarrassed at the anger,
The challenge to apologies,
Persevere in humiliation.
Admit the raging pride.

(where I hid behind a "let it be" tree and stared at fences.)

To find pieces of numbers,
lurking in gray matter.
Unbidden crossings,
blurting out,

"It would all be prime".

(And where did that come from?)

What zapped?
charged, transformed,
uncloaked that thought?

Stamina.

Perseverance.

The square numbers 2
reconciled.

Found closure.
Identity; Inverse
with my imaginary
friend.

Closure.

If numbers can be composed/
decomposed,
Can life be living on a number line?

Medford, OR