Calculus Tries to Make Sense of It All

Calculus keeps a spiral notebook
full of everything they’ve ever tried to hold still—
sunlight sliding off windshields,
grief in its fourth iteration,
the exact moment a voice rises
and means it.

They pace the kitchen like a theorem
half-proved, muttering ∂s under their breath
like prayer or apology.

Nothing ever stays, so they learn
to cradle the slope instead—
not the point, but how fast it’s leaving.

Differential is their middle name.
They trace change with a fingertip,
measure every skipped heartbeat
with a ruler made of maybes.

Ask them about velocity,
they’ll hand you a breakup text
and tell you when love started decaying.
They knew. Of course they knew.

At parties, they don’t dance—
they approximate.
Try to sum the joy in the room
but it’s always a Riemann guess,
and the people keep shifting
like functions without limits.

Integration is their soft side,
the part that wants to gather it all—
the laughter and the leftover rage,
the off-key lullabies,
the year you forgot your name and
lived anyway.

Sometimes they sit still,
watch the clouds stack themselves like problems
they can’t solve.
Even then, they whisper:
the area under this moment
is worth something.
Even if I never find the antiderivative,
even if I’m just scribbling towards
a shape I’ll never name.

Calculus is not trying to fix it.
They just want to know
how we keep going—
how the pieces add up
even while we’re breaking,
how to chart a life
that keeps slipping through
the axis. 

Bio: Âmî Jey is a neurodivergent poet and healthcare advocate whose work navigates themes of resilience, self-reclamation, and the intersections of identity and systemic challenges. Their poetry weaves personal experience with broader reflections on neurodivergence and survival, often blending metaphor and form to deepen emotional resonance. Âmî’s writing has appeared in The Broadkill Review and other literary journals. Committed to uplifting marginalized voices, especially within queer and neurodivergent communities, they create work that holds space for vulnerability and strength, crafting poems that invite healing and honest reckoning.