The digits lay themselves out before our very eyes
Pyramidal structures left crumbled, dissolved into numbers
Stock ticker counts the patterns streaking by; the pressure is too much to bear
Numeric scars run deep and wide, the Seine enclosed in a river of erythrocytes
They are stitched and mended but cannot be forgotten,
The forlorn hour of their departure marked in celluloid segments
As humbly as they appeared, mimicking a deity's stepladder
Broken vertebrae meet the sweet slice of success, a million tons' work and yet
No closer than the sepia-toned beginning, scented of elderly books and wooden floorboards.
They propel us forward and upward and we ricochet against safety-ensured walls
A dandelion springboard plunging into an abyss – light cannot reach the ocean floor
So we'll learn to photosynthesize and start anew: the product of progress
A systematic degeneration of the art of numbers falls at our hand-painted feet
The straight path is intangible; one hundred & eighty is only a dream
But crashing against the weathered shore, They will strive for (im)perfection
From nautiluses to star navigators, it is all analyzed and written in stone.
The unpersons rise from below (a logical misconception), so bewildered, They reel in fear
Placing doubt in equilibrium, turning equations into lottery cards
Their sun god blows smoke rings out his jacket pipe,
The collision between his blasé attitude and your breath becomes a trainwreck on your mind
And as the numbers retreat the battlefield into calculators, textbooks, and abacuses
I will wonder if you were happy in your statistics.