At poetry workshop: Male, Brunette.

You came into the class and I thought, oh god, not you. You sat across from me on one of those red chairs in the Common Room. Of course you would sit there. The whole class I wasn’t sure whether or not you were staring at me or simply looking at the dull paintings of old men hanging on the wall. It is entirely agonizing to spend four and a half hours wondering if someone is staring at you. Then when it came time to workshop your poems, that was the worst. It was all I could do to keep from calling out, “These poems are great! Why are they not already published? Do not change a precious word. We should get rid of Catch and replace it entirely with you, you and your words. Your picture can be on the cover. You with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth, you alone writing, you sitting outside.” Instead I criticized you brutally, insulting every line break and word choice until there was nothing left. “Scrap the poem,” I concluded. “Start over. Write a new one.” I imagined you going back to your room (if only I knew where it was, I thought of lingering after class to watch where you walked, but it was too tempting, too far) and crying on your lofted bed while your political science major roommate was off playing beer pong. I imagined you, sitting amongst a mess of books. Sitting in a pile of words, that is how you must live. I want to live in the words with you. I want to be swallowed whole by your fragments and become such a perfect line break.