The Algebra of belonging

I walked out of the equation before my presence seemed a futile invasion. Their stares rendered me the loose bolt in the Wright brothers’ plane, the wallflower in the drawing room— quiet, yet integral, marked for removal, yet balancing the temperaments on the Fujita scale. Eggshell insults sullied my reputation before I could dodge them. They smiled like Marie Antoinette at a financial board review, holding flowers for Algernon, just in case the twitch began. Their snares— deadly nightshade to my sunflower dream of belonging. A pack they were, thick as baobab and fruitless as such, awaiting my fall to call it a day at the country club. The crowning touch would have been me begging— a young Oliver, not for more, but for mercy. Alas, disappointment plastered across their red foreheads, for I knew the algebra before they could mechanic it.