Standard Deviation

A chalkboard full of secrets, it was like some kind of code

To tell the stars and planets how to fall and how to glow

But when she turned to face the classroom there was chalk upon her nose

Like the ghost of Madame Curie or a clown in women's clothes

And the boys dismissed the work so quick, they laughed at her instead

As just a girl who spilled some numbers from her head

Late night in the library in the basement by herself

Alone amongst the books again, at home between the shelves

She was searching for some answers when she stumbled in the dark

On a girl with colored pencils and black eyes like question marks

And they said hello in stereo, then they both just stood and stared

As a normal sort of silence filled the air

The girl asked her what she studied and what she read so late at night

The thoughts that filled her notebooks and the stars that filled her eyes

But she said she couldn't tell her, she said she'd just get bored

It was story told in numbers not a story told in words

But the girl just laughed and leaned right back, said Try me if you dare

Cause a story's when there's something more to share

So she shrugged and her hands began to speak

A dance of differentials and of poetry in Greek

She solved for new dimensions and vibrations of the strings

And from a single derivation all the worlds could rise to being

She drew concentric circles with her finger in the air

And they glowed where there were nodes along the manifold they shared

To be in perfect symmetry, joined in all degrees

They touched in ways that no one else could see

The girl's eyes lit with fire, like milk and kerosene

It was the smartest thing she'd ever heard and the hottest thing she'd seen

So she grabbed her by the brainstem and she threw her to the floor

And they kissed like their equations had never balanced quite before

Cause every lonesome thesis just describes the unobserved

There's always one who'll fall upon the tail of every curve

There's so many locks, so many doors, so many twisted keys

Within the standard deviation from the mean