zero

5,000 years ago the Egyptians found zero and they gave it the symbol for beauty.

I curl into myself, make myself small, I wonder if there is a correlation.

If there were less of me, I tell myself,

I might be beautiful.

Other nights I remind myself that I am nothing,

I am a hole in the world in the shape of a girl,

and maybe I am beautiful.

I am comfortable in this algebra, solving for zero,

solving.

Sometimes I take up space and I panic.

I have texture and colors, I will never have the elegance of math.

My words are occasionally eloquent and I know this,

words like an imprint without anything concrete.

I like to think of myself as a silhouette,

defined by the things around me.

I carve my life away, I always have.

I am 5,000 years old but nobody has found me,

found the things that are not there and found me beautiful.