Over there, I sat in my jeans and white blouse
with the long bell sleeves and the olive stitching
just to watch you do your math at the table next to me.
Reading, for the fourth time, the second chapter
of Outliers because it was the only part
of my life I wasn’t making up.
There were no eyes that glanced, fliratiously,
from seat to seat, just your broad shoulders
to my face. My face,

as I stared at pages of statistics
being the only one who knew that numbers
were **** compared to the way you could scuff me
like heels on the linoleum back to what wild
nights of believing that your hands
on my hip bones were really your hands
holding onto my heart.

Over there, with my hair tucked strangely
behind my ears, I cried. Not out loud,
but like I had been for weeks, through my smiles,
through my forgiveness, through your *******—
I kept going. I kept hanging onto the thread
you pulled loose from the end and caught blaze
to yours. I drank my tea

and everybody stared at me, because they knew.
They knew! And you’d think that would make me
finally get up, leaving my heart in the trash can
beside your knee, but please
try to understand that I didn’t.
Instead I

drew palm tree reflections on the back of my notebook pages,
and I swallowed
every breath that I couldn’t find
hoping that you’d notice the lipstick on my cup
or how I only ever wanted you to be mine.