"The Room with No Windows"
The Student Perspective:
The hallway was loud, but I only heard her.
She walked like an answer to a question I never dared ask,
and I followed
not with footsteps, but with the ache of my eyes.
Today, I stayed after class.
She left the door half-closed.
I slipped in without a reason,
except for the one buried in my chest.
She didn't look surprised.
She simply glanced up,
pushed her glasses higher,
and said,
"You again?"
And I laughed like a girl
trying not to fall in love.
Her office smelled like paper,
like old thoughts folded into books.
No windows
Just lamplight, the hum of fluorescent breath,
and her body, so close it rewrote my logic.
She didn't touch me.
But she leaned in
and the air between us turned into a confession.
I felt the edge of her skirt brush my wrist,
and I wanted to ask her if she knew
what she was doing to me.
But I kept still.
Because I wasn't sure if she was toying with me
or if I was finally dreaming out loud.
She asked about my writing,
but I couldn't think of a single word.
My head was filled with her perfume
and the sharp slope of her collarbone,
and the way her voice dipped when she said
my name like she knew
it would echo.
I wanted to stay in that room forever
let her dissect me like a poem,
line by line,
until I forgot who I was before her.
But she only said,
"You should go. It's late."
And I left,
drunk on silence and the way
she didn't close the door behind me.