5 inches away,
4 inches away,
3 inches away,
2 inches away,
1 inch away,
Almost there,
The line zoomed straight past me,
Barely touching me,
It went so fast and slick,
That it could have been mistaken for a knife,
It might as well have been a knife,
Because I feel like someone just stabbed me.
I traced my fingers along the line,
It was straight,
Like a lot of people,
But not me,
I was different,
I was a different point of this graph,
But no one wants to include me,
Otherwise I’ll make-
‘the perfect line of society, the perfect expectations’
Just a little crooked.
People were nice enough to make a graph for people like me,
People who are a part of the ‘LGBTQ society’, as they call it,
But we are never included in the line,
It always has to have a perfect equation,
And that’s why they make a ‘best fit line‘.
What if I want the line to be crooked,
Just for people like me,
So all the points are included in the graph,
All people are a part of the equation,
Why does there always have to be a ‘best fit line‘,
Because nothing fits us,
We’re not included on the line,
But we are a part of the graph.
Sometimes we want to apologize,
We are sorry that we’re an outlier,
We ruined everything,
Without us,
Nothing would be complicated.
But then we remind ourselves,
We are not mistakes in your experiments,
That those who make the line,
Should stop thinking like a robot,
Straight,
And shift their thinking a little.
Maybe then,
One day,
We can be included on the ‘best fit line‘,
Or even better,
There won’t be one in the first place.
*******************
Math connect
A ‘Line of best fit’ is a straight line that best represents data that is on a scatter plot. The line can pass through most of the points but a few are usually left out, called the outliers. Outliers are points in a graph which have no relationships with the other points and are usually errors or exceptions.
In my poem I have connected the concept of the ‘line of best fit’ and the LGBTQ society. Best fit lines are “straight” and that would mean all the straight people. The other “points” or outliers which are not included in the best fit line are in the LGBTQ society. They are still included on the graph, or in society, but no one includes them in the ‘line of best fit’ because they are not a part of the majority.
Math+Life 