I am a writer,

an observer

and recorder of people.

When you ask me, “Do you have any questions?”

I see the condescending look in your eye

Yes, I have questions.

How is it supposed to be easy for me to solve inequalities

when I know that inequality always makes a great story? 

How do you expect me to I survive if the only factors

I can comprehend are those behind a character’s actions?

Why do you want me to find the limit

when all I know is that great characters push the limits?

Where do I fall on your scale

when the only scale I can explain to you is that of

if the moral ambiguity outweighs its consequences?

What use am I to you if the only sinusoidal graph I can understand

is the rise and fall of tension in a plot? 

Why are you forcing me in a geometry into which I do not fit?

When you ask me, “Do you understand?”

I see the condescending look in your eye

Teacher, understand this.

I excel—just at things that don’t count in your class

where the thing that matters is

how well and how many ways I can count.

My ability to square root says nothing about me

Because all I care about is the root of conflict.

You expect me to believe that

fiction isn’t important because it is imaginary

yet I am supposed to work on i.

Your Venn diagram problem perplexes me

yet I can diagram a sentence with no problem.

Teacher, listen.

Words spill onto my notebook pages like water

while your numbers dam at my pencil tip.

I thrive off the whys and not the hows

I want to live in the colors of life,

Not find the arc length of the rainbow.

You may be calculating how many feet are in my downfall

But at least I will fly.