dear sloan,

do you remember the eighth grade?
neither do i, but i do remember you.
you, shipwrecked on an unknown island
with only an address to your name.
i see you standing, feet in the sand
as the waves chewed the coast.
your mother & father building a kitchen
table from palm trees & bickering. 
mr. ashman, the algebra teacher
made us write you letters each new unit
to explain the math concepts so you
you could stay caught up with us 
when/if you ever returned. of course,
i know you were just a teaching method,
putting numbers into words. but i want
to know if after all that time we made
you real, what is it that makes a person?
did your skin thicken with each envelope,
tearing them open to read your name spoken
into existence. your pronouns shifted like 
the sand you stood on. 
he/he/she/he/she, in the writing prompts
mr. ashman made sure to alternate
so as to leave you unfixed & queer
just like i would grow up to be.
the girl-boys trade letters in solidarity. 
i love that about you. tell me, 
what about exponents & integers-- what
about ratios & scientific notation do 
you still remember?
will you write to me then & teach me
what i once taught you. i'm  sorry i
know i wasn't the best at math but 
maybe i was good company-- tell me
about yourself, then, do you eat mangoes
with a sprinkle of salt like my father?
are you the only middle schooler on
the island & have you aged in these last
ten years since i wrote you? 
do you stack rocks in
the silhouette of girls & boys to fall
in love with? i want to find you
& bring you back home. what is a hometown,
then for us? for the variable bodies?
i'll set off on a ship in the creek that
runs behind the schools-- fall asleep
& wake up on the shore where you no
longer exist. there your 
drawing in the sand remain, linear
equations & system equations-- 
do you graph a line strong
enough to send your body 
away from here? oh sloan, we understood
each other, didn't we. put my
gender into numbers, sloan, put
my mouth into fractions. i would
maybe have loved you, sloan, if 
we had had more words for each other.
will you write me? will you write me?
i live at [insert address here 
yet to be determined]
i keep my gender safe in the lock box 
in the attic, you can keep yours
there too. maybe there's an equation
left for me, one i don't remember.
will you explain it to me then--
carve it in the stones
if you must.