Guest prose by Lauren Siegel

How much do you want to change on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 will be a low, and so 10 will be the highest. 0 is not here because there would be no one here to answer 0. 1 is soon to be the answer 0, so the first answer to bear meaning will be 2, but 2 is defiant, even more so than 1. If there is sadness, an answer could be 3. Answering 3 is sad because self-hatred prevents answering 4. 3 is rare and is in need of more love and attention than all of the other number answers. We must love 3. And so we really begin at 4 because they are willing to be 5 but are afraid to be 5 because 4 thinks 5 means commitment even though 4 has more courage than 5. 4 has wants. The answer 4 can breathe. And so a 4 really does mean 5, and 5 really does mean 4. The answer 5 is not the answer 5, instead it is 4 or 6. 5 is not real. The answer 5 is either a courageous 4 or a ready 6. 6 is ready for love and is the answer that needs the second most amount of love as 3. 6 is a 3 that is ready for love. And will most likely receive it. After 6 is naturally 7, but it is not as natural as one may think because 7 begins a new story of numbers. 7 is as honest and noble as any number can wish to be. 7 is the savior of answers because it births the possibility of fluidity within its honesty. If one can answer 7, they are the only answer that can also answer 1 or 2 or 3,4,5, or 6. 7 can even answer 8,9, and 10 if they want! 7 is calm. 7 is happy. An answer of 8 bears some of these qualities, and so we accept them. Finally, trust is in the answer 9. We love 9 because we believe in 9. We only can believe in 9 because the answer was not 10. The answer 10 tells us nothing, even though it wants to. 10 is just a 1 and a 0 together.