Math Homework

I am the oldest daughter of three playing mother to myself
since the days when x and y were playing house. she promised
years in a better home with crackrotted lies passing from her mouth
like smoke. I have seen her with the variables of boyfriends
more than I have memories of my father. I recall her reducing
the lowest common denominator of the abuse and the abuser to me. I am

the bipolar teenager who knows homelessness
like rational expressions. the fullest years of my life made me a factor
of zero. I have demons and imaginary friends cancelling each other
out. I am a woman of my generation in that
the real people I call friends are common
like me, flowers with irrational roots.