We’re in the common room, Lisa and I. It’s Friday afternoon, about 2 - It’s partly-sunny and 45°f. outside. We’ve claimed the two squares of temporary rectangular sunlight like the Spanish conquistadors of old once claimed everything.

I’m just drowsing, I had a test this morning, I got up at 3:30am to study for it and although I’m confident I did ok, I find myself rehashing it when I close my eyes. So I’m determinedly not closing my eyes - much. Lisa has a book open and she’s working on a chemistry problem set (called a pset) assigned as homework.

Looking out and up, there’s only one, lonely, cumulonimbus cloud in the sky. It's there, as if placed - a piece of art - the rest of the sky remaining defiantly blank. At first glance, it resembled a man, hanging by his neck, blowing in the wind under a giant mushroom gallows - but he soon detached and floated away like a tattered kite.

Lisa starts asking a question, without looking up from her book. “Ok, so when hydrogen acts as a metal instead of a nonmetal..”

“Please don’t make me think,” I whisper in a tired monotone, “I’m unprepared.”

“Ugh.” Lisa, grunted. She absorbed her disappointment quietly, without taking offense.

We’re like two disparate species coexisting in the same landscape: the chemistry-tested and the soon-to-be-tested - neither diminished the other but we’re separate.

Leong and Anna come in together, breaking off to their rooms to shed bookbags and coats but soon they’re filling the room with restless energy. “Has anyone heard from Sophy?” Leong asks.

Sophy failed a rapid test yesterday morning and was hewn from the population like a cancer on the student body - and swooped off to isolation housing. “Yeah, I took her some stuff this morning,” I report, “She seems ok.”

People are dropping to covid like flies. None of us are invincible, we roommates watch each other - as if any one of us could go full-on-zombie at any moment - not unlike I imagine dinner at the Trumps these days - everyone looking around, nonchalantly, wondering who’ll flip first - but here, if you cough, you’ll start a panic.

The moonlight was just right for talking.
You hardly talk, that’s reason enough not to fall in love.
Do you know morse code? Maybe we can tap it out.
Wait, are you trying to ****** me stealthily?
Can I just buy a vowel?
I'm not insulting you.
I'm describing you.
I’m being candid.

I’d love you less if you were here
crowding my dorm bed, nibbling me,
rubbing me like sandpaper

I’ve come this far all by myself
I am a stone, leave me alone

Let’s keep it nonchalant
don’t kiss me on the lips
don’t label this a situationship
because then one of us would need to care

Everyone’s getting covid. It’s become serious.
And pretty much everyone here is triple vaxxed.
1 in 17 at Yale have it now. One of my roommates got it.
I’m hoping I get it - if I get it - before finals.
‘cause I doubt Yale professors would give extensions.
“You’re dying? Did you not read the syllabus? NO extensions”

“What were you like as a kid?“ He asked.
Umm, “naïve..,” “boyish.. obsessive.” I answered, thoughtfully.
And how would you describe yourself now? He follows-up.
Umm, “less naïve..” “boyish.. obsessive.,” we laughed.

2006: Taylor Swift releases her first album. I was three years old.
I grew up with her - every breakup, every turns-out-gay boyfriend.
She’s brilliant - don’t get me wrong - no doubt in the universe,
but she’s not the underdog any more - not an outsider - she’s FAB rich, royalty, no, better than royalty. And she has the Taylor army.
Why is she always threatening physical violence?
Taylor is candid, she’s gay and straight, she’s republican, rageful, ****** and complex and I want to believe she actually ran someone down aka a Gatsby
She’s the Alexander Pope of our generation.
I’m just questioning the Taylor Swift breakup-industrial-complex.

Is Pete Davidson hot? I can’t decide.
He looks sort of gangly and awkward.
He’s dating Kim Kardashian.
I mean it’s not like Kanye is hot.
She’s obviously not looking for THAT.

We were in the cafeteria, having just sat down with our trays. The place, which looks like a modern, medium sized ski lodge, was almost empty. I’m registering more and more faces these days. Most are transient acquaintances from the dorm or classes. There were nods. My little group was my roommate, Leong, myself and a girl named Lucy from our chemistry class. Lucy can solve a chemical equation faster than either of us - she calls herself an idiot savant.

Lucy’s one of those overwrought girls who don’t believe food is necessary for survival and who stare anxiously at blueberries. Lucy’s tray has a spoon, a napkin and one small, plain yogurt on it. I got salmon, a bit of Pad Thai, a slice of pizza and some desert. You could feed a family of four from my tray. I always sit with my back to windows - it’s a glare avoidance thing.

Right after my first bite I saw Jordie. The world narrowed to Jordie. He was emerging from the serving area and seemed to enter the room like an actor coming center stage. He was dressed for soccer, complete with knee-high socks, shoes with cleats that clacked like a tap-dancer and little shorts - it was 39°f outside.

“Jordie,” Leong said, in a whisper that held the enthusiasm a cop would use to declare “GUN!”
I couldn’t register an answer, I was transfixed. Then Leong did something I’ll never forget - she raised her arm in a peremptory wave, signaling Jordie over to our table.

I turned to her in stark horror, but just as my lips started to form the words “***,” he was upon us. “Morning!” He says, as he slides in directly across from me and begins organizing his lunch. I look down at my plate, concentrating on my noodles like a bomb disposal tech, defusing a nuclear suitcase bomb.

“Beautiful day.” he says, looking out on the bright, crisp morning in back of us. Leong starts a conversation with him about soccer. It’s clear that she’s been talking to him but I’m not really listening. I’m watching him. Watching him fixedly, surreptitiously in my peripheral vision. Watching him eat, talk and breathe - he breathes just like a regular person only better.

Then Leong and Lucy start moving, gathering everything up to leave. I realize I haven’t actually eaten anything much - a bite of Pad Thai maybe. I stand as well, looking down, wrapping my slice of pizza in two napkins and stuffing it, an apple, a blonde-cinnamon-roll, an orange and three chocolate walnut cookies into my bookbag.

Jordie looks up from his tray. I have such a crush on this guy. It’s heady and embarrassing. His gaze makes me feel like I have awkward, grasshopper limbs. He smiles unreservedly and it hits, like a force multiplier, I’m sure I flushed crimson. I’m surprised how strongly I can respond to his just looking and smiling at me.

As we leave the cafeteria, walking towards the residence, I turn on Leong, “What was THAT?!” I ask, beginning to work myself up into something.

“I’ve been friendly with him - we have English class” Leong patiently explains, “I wanted you to meet him and get a chance to talk,” and after a moment of silence she adds, “and you never said anything!”

I shivered - the wind was freezing - only an idiot would play soccer out in this cold.

I don’t care if my crush is embarrassingly obvious to my friends. It’s pleasantly, invisible to others - I think.

I want to relish the pining - the lusting - it’s delicious. There are times you don’t want to talk to the guy - you just want to keep crushing.

You don’t want to learn things about the man - the red flags - and you always learn EVERYTHING, like what their major is or that they’re a man’s man.

In the learning, they slip from that lofty echelon of dream-lovers - you lose the hot, playlist feeling - the cheesy, corny, giddy, love SICK.

Maybe that’s where love’s real thrill is - in our imaginations. So give me the mystery - for now.

Sunny and her love-object have broken up.

It was a selfie-inflicted wound - a slapdash pic taken,
that like a puzzle, revealed more than intended.

We try to be thoughtful and considerate but
we’ve only recently escaped from captivity.

Perfectly nice people are capable of unfaithful deeds.
Isn’t that what so much of great literature is about?

Our lives are written in disappearing ink,
and it’s not as if all kisses are meaningful.

We stretch for happiness or for fleeting pleasure
- we’re not married and only vaguely committed.

What would tempt you - what could you actually resist at 18?
Or now - but maybe you’re a saint.

Night witches own the dark, as they sweep the skies on their knotted broomsticks. They take to flight, in pairs, under waxing or new moons, when the sky is darkest, the stars at their dimmest and gloom the deepest. They steal souls, drink warm blood, gather teeth and fresh, human meat.

They drift, smoke-like, with noir-intent, chewing their charcoal treats in that imperfect silence that prickles with all the sounds of the earth: growing plants, creeping insects, rustling leaves, and shivering birds.

Although their stygian laughter is frequently mistaken for cat fighting, they are soundless, becoming the shadows that disturb, that draw startled glances from the periphery of vision.

In their dark-passing, a mother will check her sleeping children one more time - dogs will whimper and fathers, the hair on their neck standing, will check already-locked windows.

Are you meandering out this night - to walk the dog or check the mail? If so, look to the sky. A little decision can be the worst mistake of your life.