"The Desk Between Us"
Students Perspective:
She doesn't look like a professor.
Not in the way her hair falls,
slightly undone
Or how her shirt clings when she leans forward,
inking the board with knowledge
as if she invented it.
I pretend to take notes.
But my wrist is lazy,
and my eyes are desperate.
Tracing her fingers as they dance with the chalk,
elegant, dangerous
like they could snap the spine of a book
or unbutton regret.
She glances my way
once.
And it ruins me.
A look that isn't kind or cruel,
just knowing.
She knows.
She must
There's a smudge of lipstick on her coffee cup.
I imagine it on my skin instead.
The taste of authority
melting into something shameful.
At night, I rehearse conversations
I'll never say.
I imagine slipping into her office
under some pretense,
dropping my innocence on her desk
with trembling hands.
I ache
Not in the simple way
someone craves love.
This is twisted, obsessive
the kind of wanting
that steals your breath
and names it devotion.
She's a rule I'm ready to break,
even if it wrecks me.