STATISTICS

Statistics mean little to the individual.

Their findings residual -containing, restraining the individual.

“According to the statistics”

A stinging sentence

A ringing census

Raking up the others

Those who have suffered

Categorizing the few or the many

Whose lives, thoughts and dreams

Became a data entry scheme

Statistics mean little to the individual

Making your struggle typical

Categorizing a set, a sub-set, a group

To a simple number you stoop

Cold numbers

Doctor’s mumble

“These are your risk factors”

These are your life’s vision refractors

According to the stats:

You SHOULD be:

Dead

Abused

Single mother

A druggie

Six months left to live

Six months left?

Six months of believing the cold, hard stats

Or worse- a life overshadowed by

Stewing in the statistical vats

According to the stats:

You are one of many

According to the facts:

You are a survivor

(poems go here)