Unsolved

Photo by Saad Ahmad on Unsplash

I cringe at the sweet-sick stench
of dry-erase marker,
staring at the glass wall between us —
your world, mine —
a pane that never let us intersect.

I press equations into time.
Fingertips blacken,
proofs smear:
every way we failed,
every way I tried.

Asymptotes reach for infinity —
always close,
never touching.

I kept adding:
truth to moment to ache,
desperate to prove
we equaled more
than silence.

I carried the remainder:
the truths that wouldn’t divide.

My breath fogs the glass.
No pulse
echoes back.

What once lit these panes —
gone.

Our formulas multiplied
into unreciprocated pain.
No shared sorrow.
Just fragments:
integers,
derivatives,
circles refusing to meet.

Love isn’t here.
Only me.
And the chemical sting
of a marker gone dry.

Friends, acquaintances — constants
I balance
to keep from falling.

Solving for more than strangers
became a joyless ritual.
Even zero
felt like hope.

I crumple to the floor.
Can you see me?
The glass reflects
only me now.

No more answers.
No proof left to chase.

I set the marker down —
not brave,
just done.

I let the theorems blur.
Tears streak the final equation.

I wipe away
the math of us.
Glass clears.
Only what we never became
remains.

~Kayla

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