Red for economics,  
green for English,  
white for ICT
your files stacked in my hands,  
pages filled with notes in your careful script
I never needed to ask; you just lent them
as if sharing knowledge meant sharing a part of you. 

A classroom of seventeen,  
but I only counted one.
I traced your desk with my fingertips,  
opened your pencil case just to see  
what colors you carried,  
what secrets lived between the erasers and sharpies.  

We worked in groups,  
side by side but never quite close enough.  
I stole glances when I thought you wouldn’t notice,  
but maybe you always did.  
Maybe that’s why you smiled so easily,  
why you never pulled away.  

Years have stretched between us,  
but high school still lingers like a cozy
dream  
I wake from too slowly.  
Your files, your laughter, your presence in the last row
they live in me
as if time forgot to take them when it took you.