This is the story of my first love,
or why I hate math,
depending on your perspective.
Because I'm queer, they intersect: bear with me.
in 3rd grade my math teacher was Mrs. Eberhardt.
Her flowing flower print dresses made my baby-dyke heart sing.
having her sleek black bob near gave me secret thrills.
if I had a question with a particular problem,
she would come & stand above me,
leaning down, to help me understand.
I understood, all right.
understood so well that soon
all my math skills were suffering.
So great was my need to have Mrs. Eberhardt near me,
even my ability to add well was in question.
learned that the worse I did,
the more my conscientious teacher would hover
and pay attention to me.
Soon, my brain would shut itself off
as soon as I walked into her classroom.
Try as I might
I could not grasp concepts
that I understood just two weeks prior.
Long division soon proved to be so troublesome
that she was spending a majority of the class
leaning over my desk
where I could bask in her smell:
that magical elixir of ivory soap and chalk.
most children would be horrified
to be receiving so much attention from a teacher;
afraid of being "uncool" to their peers.
I simply did not care.
There was nothing else on earth when Mrs. Eberhardt was near.
The world sank into the background.
We were on my planet, daniland
The only inhabitants were me, Mrs. Eberhardt, my desk, and the few squares of
linoleum that held us up.
Soon I was faring so poorly
my desk was next to hers,
in the front, facing the class.
Even this was not a tragedy,
as it would be for some.
I took it as a sign of her love for me.
She wanted to be near me, too!
She asked me to sit with her!
My ploy for attention worked too well, however
and Mrs. Eberhardt, in the just frustration of
a teacher who's tried everything
(but what I took as a cruel lover's rebuff),
sent me to Mrs. Rothstein's remedial math class.
Not even Mrs. Rothstein's scratch-n-sniff stickers
could remove me from my lovelorn funk.
To this day, I have problems with long division.
I equate it with a loss of love.
I remained closeted to even myself for 9 more years
& had to take pre-algebra three times.
I often wonder about those studies
that cite girls have problems in math and science
starting in pre-adolescence.
Never do they address how I fell behind-
How many of those girls were
hormonally challenged fawning
baby dykes like me?