The word alone
makes me squirm.
My eyes begin to cross.
My skull throbs
in time with my heart –
two heavy bass drums.
Flashcard memories
torture my brain –
precarious classroom moments frozen
in front of a blackboard,
sweaty fingers fisting the chalk, scratching, erasing, scratching, erasing.
Equations I cannot solve.
Numbers. Graphs.
Symbols. Decimal points…
Mathematics.
My kryptonite. My nemesis.
Cold. Glaring. Calculating,
so very, very calculating,
yet never adding up
to anything.
Haunted Avenues 