Renee Writes

Oh, how we love our numbers.
They tell us everything we need to know.
They measure everything we take as markers
of value,
of virtue.

You can spend your life chasing the numbers.

Age, weight, GPA, SAT, likes, shares, income, FICO,
gains and losses,
a life spread thin across a spreadsheet.

Our clocks can count
fractions of a second so small
I can’t comprehend them.
So small that multitudes of them would pass
within one deep breath of mine –
seriously, I did the math.
And yet those fractions are huge –
Huge enough to separate
the winners from
the losers.
To shunt their owner into a future of glory and wealth
or one of mundane obscurity.
So, so, so close –
not close enough.

Numbers to say how many times
someone heard the song,
how many times someone listened to the talk,
how many times the book was downloaded.

But numbers can’t tell how the words and the tune
reached down inside a desperate soul,
how far it lifted her,
how it chased away the demon loneliness.
The value of reaching even one, even if only just one.
There’s not Hall of Fame for One.

On a scale of 1 to 5.
On a scale of 1 to 10.
Assign a number to convey complexities
of thought and feeling so deeply nuanced that
an afternoon’s conversation would not be enough
to plumb the depths.
But no one has time for that.
So, pick a number.
1 to 5.