Page 80 of Dock

“Given that there are over a hundred and fifty types of poetry, you have plenty to choose from when it comes to style.” My multicolored, fringe wool shirt covered butt leans against the edge of the desk. “The only requirement is you have to create a poem that sounds like it’s about one thing but is really about another.”

A sea of blank faces continues to stare back at me.

Gahhh, how fucked up is it that I wish he was one of them?

That he was sitting in the back corner, cockily grinning, undressing me with his amber gaze, hungrily biting his bottom lip over thoughts of pulling off my orange and purple cardigan to get a better look at the deep bruises he left along my collarbone, bruises that would convince him to bend me over right here across the desk.

Feeling unneeded heat lick the sides of my neck, flushing my face, I hastily fiddle with my sweater, closing myself off, covering any chance of my highly inappropriate arousal being spotted. “For instance,” a small throat clearing presents itself to steady my voice, “you could write a poem about sailing a yacht through a tropical storm that’s really about doing your best to navigate the hardships of parenthood.”

One of the older women towards the back quickly jots down the suggestion.

“Or,” I push my falling frames back up my nose, “you could write one about a snail that’s really a front for how you hide yourself in layers and feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your back day in and day out.”

Okay.

Yes.

That one may be what I would choose to write about if I were taking this class.

But I’m not.

I’m teaching it.

Pretty well, I like to think.

Minus the whole banged a student thing.

The small smile that slips onto my face is equally forced and professional. “Those were examples not suggestions for you to make your own.”

Seriously.

I don’t need every other poem that gets turned in being made from the verbal model.

“And if you’re still unsure of subject or style or even length, don’t worry. We’ll be going over a few more poems on Thursday – both classic and modern – and dissecting what deeper meaning you feel or what thoughts were provoked. Remember if you wanna get a jump start on reading those over, they are on your syllabus and if you lost your syllabus – because life happens to us all – they’re on the website where you turn in your papers.” I fold my hands together in front of me and announce, “Class dismissed.”

Clamoring to scurry out of the room is expected; however, seeing tall, tan, and terrible at texting lurking in the doorway is not.

We’re talking. So. Terrible.

With no reason to be!

His generation – gah, I hate that that makes me sound old – basically doesn’t know how to live without texting so for him to have barely sent one since he practically walk of shamed himself out of my bedroom on Sunday is ridiculous.

And what makes it even worse?

The fact that I feel like some clingy, needy, teenage girl instead of a grown woman who has to face the simple – yet sad – fact that she got played.

That she totally fell for the guy who said all the right things, in all the right ways, at the precise right time to get into her pants.

Er.

Skirt.

Bottoms.

Panties.

Whatever article of clothing!