"Red Lipstick And Rules Bent Like Bodies"
The Teacher:
She handed in her paper today
three pages too long,
and still, not long enough.
The girl writes like she dreams,
messy, swollen with yearning,
spilling over margins
like a confession she doesn't understand.
She doesn't know
she's already in the curriculum
I'm drafting in my mind
the private one,
written between her glances,
her shy pauses,
the way her thighs press together
when I correct her softly.
There are rules.
I know them.
I wrote some of them.
But they were made by smaller women
with duller desires.
I was born to break them
beautifully.
Today, I wore red.
Lipstick, silk blouse, nail tips.
I caught her looking
as I uncapped the pen with my teeth.
She nearly choked on air.
Good.
Let her drown a little.
Let her feel what it's like
to fall into the very thing
she was warned about.
And I I smile.
Not the sweet smile.
The dangerous one.
The kind that says
I already know where her bruise will bloom
before I ever lay a finger.
I grazed her shoulder
passing by.
Not a touch.
A promise.
She froze.
It thrilled me.
You see, I'm not chasing her.
I'm pulling.
Every question she asks in class
is a thread I tug.
Every stutter,
a door she cracks open wider.
The others think I'm a brilliant academic.
I am.
But brilliance isn't light.
It burns.
And I've chosen her
as the flame I'll feed.
She's not my student.
Not really.
She's my experiment.
My indulgence.
My soon to be undoing,
if I let her close enough.
But I won't
not yet.
She still believes
she has a choice.