Poems

First an update: for anyone who remembers way back (last month) when I wrote about Handsome ____ from my poetry class? Well, he's vanished. No longer attends class, never responded to the emails I sent him. So this post is not about him.

It is about a handsome man in my poetry class, however. This guy, Poetry Guy #2 (PG2 for short), is probably the best poet in the class. And he is handsome, but I wouldn't define him that way, not the same why I did Handsome ____. This man and I have talked a couple of times outside of class, nothing major or really worth mentioning beyond just that little note.

In class last night, it was my turn to workshop. I read my poem, which was supposed to be an Ars Poetica; I titled my poem "Ours Poetically" partly to be a jerk (a cute jerk!) and partly because that name was the best I could do at the time when the poem needed a title. But so I read it, realizing as I went that I really liked the poem. And that it is a little bit more sexual than I had previously understood it to be. I had practiced reading it, so I had it really down to the way I wanted it to be heard. But my teacher wanted to hear it in someone else's voice. Which I wasn't happy with at first. I mean, it's my poem, and I want to have it read a specific way. I didn't want anyone else reading it.

Until PG2 volunteered. That shut me up before I could even voice any sort of complaint. Instead, I stared at him as he read my words off the page. And I am pretty sure I have never been more attracted to anyone in the whole world as I was to PG2 last night while he was reading my poem. The words are about love poems, and there is some loosely sexual imagery, but nothing racy (as anyone who knows me should already know). But something about hearing his voice saying my love words, what was essentially my love fantasy, really hit me right in the center. I had to try really hard to keep from giggling--it was embarrassing, a little, to be paying so much attention to one single person in a roomful of people.

It was kind of like when you create something and you watch someone observe it. When they don't know who you are and make a comment that tells you the really understood what you were trying to do without even knowing you. Because usually it is so much easier to understand what an artist was trying to accomplish when you know that artist. But it was like he somehow took my poem and understood it enough that it was a little bit his. And that was exciting, yes, because he is attractive and smart and a good poet/guy, but also because that was my poem and it was coming to life without me.

It made me want to as PG2 on a date. And also write many many many more poems. Really, those are the moments I live for. The ones that make me want to write. And smooch.