They are painfully perceptive,
of course. They all are. Their
intelligence excruciating and
their gazes sharp enough to cut
your shields down, leave you naked as
the wind. They rarely ever lose a
thing, these kids, they don’t forget.
You tell them numbers, and a year
after they still hear them, clear as
day. But would you want that? Would you
gladly carry everything you
ever knew or heard? Doesn’t
all the universe’s weight get
heavy in their backpacks after
while? Their shoulders aren’t so broad as
we would like to think, you know. If
you look closely, I’d imagine
you could see the fault lines where their
hope is breaking softly, neatly
just along precision-numbered
calculated lines. We put such stock
in precision. I wonder if
we told these kids that love is not
precise, and that significance
is really something figures can’t
decide. We say they’re good at
calculus, but not so good at
living. Can you blame them? After
all, we’ve spent forever teaching
them just how to be exactly
perfect writing on a page but
not that life isn’t math and it
doesn’t work out neatly. People
are not constants and they aren’t want
you expect. These kids are dying.
Slowly, right behind those brilliant
dart cold piercing eyes. It’s our fault.
We never saw them trading in
their wishes for reality.
I worry that we never once
reminded them to want. You see,
they gave up all themselves for this,
and we forgot. We forgot to
tell them dreams are not as sturdy
as equations – once you lose them
they’re hard to replace.