I'm Not That Girl

I needed a tragedy, and you were it.
Lungs, separate from all else.
I watched you breathing: air, air.
Your wicked chapped hands cracking like an earthquake
And you said the word “sure” like “shore”
That was it:
I channeled Athena, divine, knowing
I was Alice trapped in my own psychosis
Spinning with the sharp thoughts
Channeling the very celestial powers that dusted Mars
And you were feline,
Intractable
Together we wrote out crazy synthetic division
X cubed minus two x squared plus nineteen x to the fourth…
Divided by x to the third plus two-thirds radical x
And you were it
All I needed
A bandit in a tutu with lemon juiced elbows
And a sorry gray cloud hanging over your head
All we were was nineteen
I needed a tragic number, and you were it
Nineteen.