numbers

ED TRIGGER WARNING

i’m not a writer. i’m just so tired of my life and i need some way to say what i have inside me or i’ll burst.

i always had an aptitude for maths

the right and the wrong answers

puzzle pieces that fit into their place

so easily that i wondered why

i never had a space on the board

and my edges collided with all around me

until i was labeled a defect piece

to be tossed back into the box

i let the numbers write my story

my self worth counted in calories

calculators telling me not y = mx + b

but that i was ugly

and calculators had never failed me yet

so who was i to disagree

tears in my eyes and fingers down my throat

as i watch the numbers on the scale go down

sleepless nights spent counting inches around my waist

that defined my beauty

maths always made sense to me

equations slotting so neatly into one another

it made sense as i began

using the formulas to fix the parts i hated

using the numbers to eat away at my body

until i am made of skin and bones and too sick to leave my bed

maybe that’s when it’ll stop making sense

because how could something i trust so much

end up killing me?