Daydream Denominator

Day 10 of the 30 Days of Fantasy

They handed me homework, a cruel kind of blight
page after page of equations to fight.
X was unknown, Y had fled in despair,
and no one could tell me why Z wasn’t there.

My pencil broke thrice. My patience wore thin.
The numbers were mocking. I’d never win.
The fractions were fractious, the angles were mean,
and don’t get me started on Pi’s whole regime.

So I rose from my desk with a thunderous sound,
swept my cloak (okay, hoodie) and stood my ground.
“I am the God Empress!” I cried to the skies,
“Of Division, and I have had it with lies!”

“No more addition! Subtraction? Denied!
Algebra's banished, the census must hide!
Geometry’s plotting, I know it's a scheme
conspiring with rulers to ruin my dream!”

My throne was a beanbag, my glass a juice box.
I jailed every decimal. Banished the clocks.
No more statistics, no graphs to be read
just doodles of fairies and stories instead.

The kingdom rejoiced! My math book was burned!
The homework was shredded! The quizzes unlearned!
I ruled with great wisdom (and glittery pens),
and no one recited those math chants again.

But just as I issued decree number four
declaring the floor tiles a chessboard of war
a whisper returned, like a tick of the hand
"You can't build a fortress on unmeasured sand..."

My empire trembled. I blinked and I frowned.
My fantasy crumbled back into the ground.
There sat my paper. My pencil. My chair.
My teacher still teaching... unaware.

I sighed and I scribbled, just one problem more.
Conquered an equation, and maybe one more.
For even God Empresses, fierce in their reign,
must learn to divide... and sometimes explain.

~by Heather Patton / The Verdant Butterfly

30 Days of Fantasy — A Writing Challenge for the Wonder-Hungry

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