The algebraic expression for growing up

It isn't exactly finished yet, but I just wanted to see what yall thought of it so far =)

Three cups of cheaply brewed coffee,

six hours worth of

flirtatious telepathy

with my bedroom wall,

and five and a half minutes

until my alarm goes off.

Some call them bad habits,

but I’ll have you know that I’ve been doing this

since the sixth grade

and despite my parents’ expectations,

I’ve only tripped twice.

Twice.

Add that to the amount of

fingers slammed in doorframes.

Six.

Then to the number of

ripped bookbags destroyed

because of overconfidence

in the brand name.

Twelve.

To the number of missing ipods

and broken hearts.

Thirty-six.

Now add up all the

empty bottles of

black nail polish

I have hiding under my bed,

and multiply.

Two hundred and thirty-six.

Maybe I want to step into the classroom

with my right leg

at an 86 degree angle

to calculate the remaining degrees

between going forward

and turning around.

Turning around.

Like 360 degrees of a circle.

Like finding the coordinates

of your standing point,

then measuring the distance

to your prison of a desk.

Multiply by two

and there you have

the length between being

alone and feeling lonely.

If I fell down the stairs again,

or locked myself in the girls bathroom

until lunch time,

I could isolate the variable

and solve for the equation

of not giving up just yet.

So add three more cups of

cheaply brewed coffee,

six more hours of flirtatious

wall staring,

and hopefully no one

will notice

when I trip for the third time.

Reviews

[emmajoy]

'.. I could isolate the variable ~ and solve for the equation ~ of not giving up just yet.'

Good gracious, this is so clever, so unusual, so ... everything! For anyone to weave such thoughts about math is incredible to me. There's knowledge and skill here, and i'm more than surprised you've not had more reviews, truly am. The penuiltimate stanza really gets to me, consequently, I'm near envious at your ability. Bravo!