Say a division runs at four tenths of a second, the time it requires for you to close your eyes and hear your lover exhale. Let’s say that this division represents dimensions, the round average of the sound of a drop of rain hitting a lake as smooth as a licked ice-cream cone, the impact circle in the centre reminiscent of old fashioned glass. On the other hand is a ring, now removed. Let it represent how you feel about betrayal, about your teacher wrongly calling you a liar. Press the two together as strongly as spermatozoa sing love songs to a cell and divide the result with the pared down cliche pieces of what you once thought was innocence but really turned out to be ignorance. Discuss.
Take for example a train of thought, the smoke trailing behind as old scarves when they were in style, and count the number of passengers in every wooden car. Remove the conductor and their morning coffee poisoned with almond cream, instead replacing them with an empty suit as hollow as teenage aspirations. Insert as well the book heavy idea that you are neither cool nor hot. How fast are you leaving tracks toward honour and away from privilege? Show your work. Your numbers should be as fluid as the panic underneath the first time you burned yourself operating a stove or oven.
Bonus: To accurately gauge the desperation found when your parents die, plan a method of seduction to press upon all of the children found in a ten mile radius from your last french kiss. You are not allowed to use candy or calculators. These are the rules. Abide.