If You Were a Number

Can I tell you something?

If you were a number
And you were a hundred
You would be
A hundred days of spring

Does spring even have a hundred days?
Who knows
But the only hundred you could be
Would be spring and spring and spring and spring
And on and on and on
For all one hundred days

If you were ninety
You would be a healthy ninety-year-old woman
Who's had a vivacious
And jam-packed life
Full of dangerous passion
And motorcycle rides

If you were eighty
You would be eighty soft lights
Lighting up a New York skyline
So that two distant lovers on a train
Heading out of the city
Would look back
And wonder
If they should have tried
A little harder
To make it work

If you were seventy
You would be seventy pieces of candy
In over seventeen bags
Collected by children
On Halloween

Good candy
No, great candy
Full-size chocolate bars
And peanut butter
Everything

If you were sixty
You would be sixty
And sixty-four
So you could be a Beatles song
Because what in the world
Could be better
Than being
A Beatles song?

If you were fifty
You would be an anniversary
Shared by two people
Who don't remember
Not having each other

They have no time in their minds
Before love
Before being in love
And they would be you
And you would be fifty years
Of all that love

If you were forty
You would be a man having a mid-life crisis
Until his young daughter
Touches his hand
While they sit together at a movie
And looks up at him
As if he's her hero
Because he is
And she's his everything
And he almost forgot that
And then he remembered
And forty--which was FORTY!
Became--Forty
And he went on with it
And you were that little girl
Reminding her father
That numbers are wonderful
But also, just numbers

If you were thirty
You would be thirty days
After a heartbreak
When you're just beginning
To close up your wounds
And inch towards
Whatever comes next

If you were twenty
You would be twenty missed phone calls
From friends and family checking in on you
Because they want to say 'Hi'
And 'We miss you'
And 'Come home'

If you were ten
You would be a ten-year-old boy
Who got everything he wanted
On his birthday
Even the bike his parents said
He shouldn't expect to get
When they knew full well
They were going to get him the bike
Those cheeky parents

If you were nine
You would be the nine lives
Of a woman with all the luck in the world
And all of the lives would be exciting
And all of them would include funny hats

If you were eight
You would be eight pages left
In the best book
You've ever read

If you were seven
And my goodness
You really are a seven
You fit seven so well
Well--if you were seven
You would be seven small words
Written on a note
To a husband going on a trip
From his wife--

'I'll see you when you get back'

Seven small words
But when sincere
All you need to hear
To know that you've done all right in this world
Because you have somewhere
To come back to

If you were six
You'd be six puppies
Surrounding their mother
Waiting to be fed

Yes, you can be puppies
You can be puppies
In a poem about love
There are more original things
Than puppies
But why be original
When you can just be puppies?

If you were five
You would be
FIVE GOLDEN RINGS
Because you have to be
Right?

If you were four
You'd be four hours
Of laying in bed with me
With me staring at the back of your head
Wondering if you're smiling
As my arms go around you
Feeling you
Drift off
To sleep

If you were three
You'd be a wish
To be a number
And a wish to have the number to be three
And then three more wishes
Because that's how you beat
The Three Wishes Game

If you were two
You'd be me
And you'd be you
And we could be two
And two could be one thing
While still being two
And wouldn't that be something?

And if you were one...

...Well

You are one

That's the whole point

You are
One

I mean, honestly...

What else could you be?