Arithmetic

Fourteen steps to the second floor.“I used to not count them.“Now I count them the way other people count calories or money —“a running total my body keeps whether I want it to or not.“

Some mornings fourteen is nothing, a number I forget the second I've climbed it.“Some mornings fourteen is a negotiation,“a treaty renewed one tread at a time“between the me who wants to be upstairs“and the me who has to actually get there.“

Nobody built this staircase thinking about me.“I've made my peace with that.“I just wish, some mornings, it hadn't been built thinking about no one at all.“