Standardized

I lived my life in the ninety-ninth percentile. Until. So what does it mean now.

The box is still a box. The cone still pointed. The right angle is still a squared plus b squared equals.

I told them how, but all they ever wanted to know was when. I couldn't do it for them. Tried to show them, but intelligence is the worst from of communication.

They always told me I was better, but I never felt it was true.

Working so hard for the words that never work.

I tried to conceal how they made me feel. Tried until it actually succeeded. And everything was written in chalk. Gone as easily as it came.

It's not as if I expected to really live. To know what it is to really love. In any three-dimensional way. But I saw the hologram and tried to touch it.

For a while it even seemed like I had.

I guess I should feel hurt. But all I feel is used.

We're not counting, but the numbers refuse to let go. You're sorry, but you don't know why.

See, that's how I know you're really not. Be my tragedy for tonight and tomorrow we will go back to our ordinary lives.

I used to think you'd be sorry. And I would too. When you finally realized you needed me and I was no longer there.

But now I just think I tried too hard to be someone I'm not.

The ninety-ninth percentile is a beautiful place to be when you're young. But the older I get the lonelier it is.

Nothing holds my attention like pain does. Nothing moves me so much as losing what I couldn't own.