Standard Deviation

The exam room is cold, and the air is too thin.

I step onto the platform and wait for the click.

The metal slider moves like a needle on skin,

finding the balance with a mechanical flick.

One hundred and eighty-six. A hard, flat fact.

Gravity pulling the blood toward the floor.

It’s an honest accounting, a physical pact,

that doesn't care who I was the decade before.

The paper sheet crinkles under my thighs

as I sit on the table and wait for the knock.

Numbers don't have any use for the lies

we tell ourselves while we’re watching the clock.