ant number

why can't you just let me be crazy?
on the television a man is saying,
"soon virtual reality will be in every house.
they'll be like toasters." i stick my head
in the toaster & i see a virtual reality whale
who is trying to escape the land of make believe.
when i used to have math tests
sometimes all the numbers would turn
into ants. i would start squishing them
with my thumb until the time was up
& i hadn't answered any questions. the ants
returned stronger than before. they came
with their new numbers. ones we are
supposed to explain how much
more time we need to sleep. my alarm is
a little buzzard. she wears a bow she stole
from a road-side memorial. i want to go rogue.
i want to drive the car into the clouds.
park it there. see them try & give me a ticket then.
sometimes i believe if i could just
see an ant number again i might have
a solution to all my problems. my mirrors
spit me out. my blood is full of race cars.
the virtual reality whale tries to swallow me
but spits me out right away. i'm sadly not 
a little krill. i'm just a man who is not
really a man but sometimes might as well be.
gender is such a terrible thing to talk about.
no one likes it, don't believe what 
they tell you. i do one of those ridiculous
street interviews. i hold up a paint swatch
& ask everyone what color it is. no one knows.
some people get creative. "dried blood."
"broken finger." so so close. the worst is when
the ant number are inside your phone.
i try to brush them off the screen but they're
deep deep in the wild now. you tell me,
"i don't know what you mean" so i take
a needle & thread & sew a shoe to the wall.
there. i'm not going anywhere unless
the house goes belly-up again. the fish tank
has eyes. watches a television. i never finish 
the math test. sometimes i find it, still blank
waiting for me on the kitchen table.