30 Poems in 30 Days - #3 Anything But Numbers

There is no force as devastating to illusion or reality as that of cold mathematics.
Our lives and bodies grow and shrink, across a length of time that seems relatively vast to our own consciousness - to the point where we most often don't hear the tick of each second delivering us one step closer to everybody else's fate.

Numbers and me...we never did get along.
Ever since 06/17/85, when I came into this world blue and strangled - maybe my prejudice against digits came then, when the first ticks I experienced could well have been my last. Maybe that encounter with the grim accountant left me jaded as green beads on an abacus.

My life has been one of words. Philosophies. Painting by anything but numbers. And while cold math has facts, and facts I respect, I hold more value in the truths I uncovered by stepping outside the lines.

Give me a number for something that can't be calculated.
Just give me a number.


In one second, the human body pumps 83 mL of blood.

In one second, 694,444 cells in the human body die.

In one second, a human takes on average 0.2 breaths, totaling 1 breath every 5 seconds.

For fun, let's add love to the equation.

In one second of love, the heart beats faster.
So give me a number for love.
In one second of love, the lungs take more breaths.
So give me a number for love.
In one second of love the body is washed over with the tingling sensation of each and every cell desperately clinging to life.
So give me a number for love.

This poem lasts about two minutes.


You've pumped 9.96 Litres of blood
83,333,280 cells in your body have died
and you have taken 24 breaths.

And if you loved it, those numbers get higher.
So give me a number for love.
Give me a number for this poem.
Just give me a number.