A Persona Poem

"Zero"
Lauren Young

Never was there a prouder
Fuller entity existing in all
Of the parallel logarithms, acute angles,
Perpendicular run and walk arounds,
Geometrical circles, patterns of silica,
Ex plus why, three’s a crowd,
One’s too lonely standing in a corner,
Two just rightly, tightly knit.
I’m the O in Orson Wells and Rosebud,
The first thing that pops into your mouth
When you exclaim in surprise at logic,
The encompassment of the invisible man.
I am everything.
You are nothing without me –
Nothing is all when all is nothing.
I complete you, wholly rounded.
The Napoleon of Air.
The great animator of mathematics.
I am the face you make when you smile –
Teeth gritted with tolerance.
You are surrounded by me.
I am everywhere. You cannot
Escape from the inevitability of the
Reality that even seven is incomplete
Without my presence, one hundred would
End up just as lonely as one if I weren’t
There to breathe life into it.
History wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t
Seen to it that the years were as complete
As the fording of the Rubicon,
The Battle of Waterloo, the death
Of Alexander, the mourning of Solomon’s
Temple destroyed by Tiberius.
Without me, nothing else matters.
All can only be all when
It is compared to nothing. Without
Nothing, all is nothing. Nothing
Makes all. The marrow of who
I am is the lifeblood of who you are.
Minus my mother and plus my father
Equaled a powerful force, able to yield
Control over any emotion floating
Through the dominion of existence.
No conscience, no heart, no hygienic
Obligations, no subtraction, no addition.
Emptiness isn’t lonely, unbearable, or sad
If you rule it with the solid grasp of a whispering
Child mouthing a backpeddle word
To make up for loudness, frivolity.
Without me, face it if you can,
You’d be wondering where all the space went.