While working on LONG DIVISION: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners (co-edited with Doug Murano, and available now from Bad Hand Books), I wrote a 10-part poem in the empty spaces while working on the interior design. It’s not in there now, of course, but you can read it below:

DIVIDE BY ZERO
by Michael Bailey

PrologueThe clock was never kind,its hands carving futures into fractions.What was whole became parts,what was shared became scarce,

and time itself learned to divide.

1.A rusted seesaw in a playground of ash,children no longer laugh—no one has time for that.The tilt of balance is a lesson in gravity,where the heavier side always wins,

crushing everything beneath.

2.Skyscrapers lean toward the horizon,as if yearning for softer lands to fall into.But no one builds cathedrals of safety anymore,just markets with no ceilings,

the sky bought out piece by piece.

3.A woman pockets the last canned peach,her eyes daring the watchers to object.Hunger makes etiquette optional,and in this division of spoils,

manners drown in the absence of mercy.

4.The streets whisper with the shuffle of feet,heads bent like broken sunflowers.No greetings are exchanged, only glances—furtive, sharp,

counting threats instead of stars.

5.Books burn not for knowledge but for warmth,their words curling into smoke and forgetting.Libraries now serve as shelters for the lost,shelves empty except for echoes

of stories no one cared to carry.

6.Plastic blooms choke the rivers,petroleum petals spreading like rot.In the water’s reflection,the sky imitates the filth below,

another mirror broken by neglect.

7.Beneath the crumbling overpass,a mural proclaims “Unity is strength.”The paint flakes like broken promises,while scavengers haggle over rusted screws,

splitting nails into weapons.

8.Somewhere, a child still divides her days,halving minutes of hunger with seconds of hope.But even hope has grown thin,its arithmetic no longer adding up

in a world that has forgotten its sum.

EpilogueThe silence grows,not from peace but exhaustion.Even the wind has forgotten its song,its breath stretched thin across broken lands,

where we dared to divide by zero.

The anthology for which that poem was written is now available in trade paperback and eBook. While this is not published by Written Backwards, I fully support Bad Hand Books and everything they publish, and I highly recommend picking up a copy. The anthology includes cover artwork by J.E. Larson, and the following wonderful contributions:

“The Mean Season” by Zoje Stage (poem)
“Item G2V” by Alex Grecian
“Celeste” by Chuck Palahniuk
“Third-Time Lucy” by Anna Taborska
“S.A.M.” by Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
“The Fire of Roses” by Cynthia Pelayo
“Two Schools” by Elizabeth Massie
“Yard Signs” by John F.D. Taff
“The End of the World, After All” by Andy Davidson
“Broken Sky Road” by Mason Bundschuh
“To What Do We Owe This Pleasure” by Jonathan Lees
“Blight” by Lora Senf
“The Next Station Is—” by Ai Jiang
“Boiling Point” by Scott Edelman
“Cinders In Your Hair” by Eugen Bacon
“The Nocturnal Gardener” by Clay McLeod Chapman
“You Are the Emptiness in Every Room You Occupy” by Eric LaRocca
“Beggin for Thread” by Gary A. Braunbeck
“Versus Versus” by Laird Barron
“The Third Seal” by Jamal Hodge (poem)