t to s

Written by Aayushi Singh
Art by Anonymous

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(In Mathematics, Laplace transform basically helps in converting a real variable (usually ‘t’ as in time domain) to a function of a complex variable (‘s’ which is frequency domain). Inspired by Harry Baker’s slam poetry, this poem is written to the letter ‘s’ of the transform from the letter ‘t’.)

I met a paper girl
with a little paper heart.

But before you know how I met her
you should know of her beautiful chuckle
with her smoothly trimmed cuticles,
and my paper heart is delusional
it crumpled into a musical.
She had the perfect figure.
Oh, her beauty was
indisputable.

So when I saw her from across the street, she smiled.
Suddenly I realised I was only disorganised piles –
a wobbly leg with twigs for arms being my profile,
I knew there was a subtle lack of style.
My head was an endless convolution.
Although she lived across the street, our worlds were different.
Divided by ordinary differentiations
waiting for some transformation
that could make the separates equal.

Sure after months of moping around,
she noticed me outside my house on a playground.
She said, “Hey, I’m s.”
I grinned. “I’m t.”
I had a really nice time
So I plucked up courage and asked her
“You wanna hang out downtown?”
And she said, “Sure.”

Now you know how I met this paper girl.
She might be complex but our love is real.
But even if the whole world fell apart,
we’d still make it through
with our infinite limits,
and our little paper hearts.