"Unwritten Assignments"
The Student:
She looked at me
like I was already hers
not just the way a teacher commands a room,
but the way fire calls to flesh
and knows the skin will follow.
There is no syllabus for this
no rule for how her eyes trap mine
long after she's turned the page.
I count the seconds
her glance lingers on my lips
and lose the thread of her lecture
in the maze of her mouth.
I swear she stands too close now,
asks me questions she knows I'll stumble on
just to watch me flush
I think she enjoys the way I break.
She started annotating my essays
with phrases that feel like whispers:
"Curious mind."
"Bold instincts."
"Uninhibited potential."
Every word underlined like a secret
or an invitation.
Yesterday,
her fingers brushed mine
as she handed back a paper.
It wasn't an accident.
She smiled like she meant it.
Like she had done far worse in her mind.
I pretend not to notice
that her gaze drags down my spine
like a silk glove turned inside out,
but at night,
I dream of her mouth
like it's a forbidden book
I'm dying to read cover to cover.
There are things I don't say aloud,
like how I stay after class
just to inhale the ghost of her presence
or how I answer her questions wrong
just to hear her correct me,
her voice low, certain,
dripping with something far more dangerous than knowledge.
She knows.
She has to know.
And still,
she feeds it.
This thing between us
wild, wordless,
worse than love.
Better than sense.