frags

quadratic bliss

it all began with lines and boxes, straight lines and sharp right degree angles. i loved algebra as a child because of the demand for precision, for exacting angles and stalwart lines. Quadratic equations were the best: both sides had to be made whole and equal, the beauty of symmetry. i would map them out across an imaginary grid, as if all of space and time could be simplified to quarter inch squares stretching across a finite boundary of paper and lead. as if i too could be made clean and perfect and graceful through extraction and exactness. as if i too could fall from grace like a meteor but rebound before crashing into the zero point, into the hard nothing, and triumphantly ascend, rocketing off the page into the infinite, into a pure state of bliss.

out of nothing something comes