University midterm periods bring early mornings charged with energy drinks and espresso shots. Evenings are spent trading quizlets in Bass Library or in late night cram sessions in the common room. After several days of stressful testing, midterms suddenly end.

But we’re like those Indianapolis race cars that’ve just run 500 laps, we come off our midterm tracks with our proverbial metal popping and creaking from intense heat and stress. For the first day or so after midterms I can’t sit still. I pace around like I’ve forgotten something—then it sinks in—I can have fun, in fact, it may be mandatory.

My bf Peter is spending spring break with me—for the most part in my dorm room. It’s night two of our 18 romantic days and nights. We spent our first day wending around campus. Peter went here for years—earning his master’s and PhD here. He knows Yale even better than I do—it’s a nostalgia tour for him—he works for CERN in Geneva now (Europe’s most boring city—I think that’s their tourism tagline).

As we lay snuggled in my twin-sized dorm room bed, beneath one of my very freshly laundered sheets, it’s about 41°F and windy. I keep my lattice windows wide open, because I like to sleep cold, with just a sheet. Peter complained once, when he’d first earned sleepover privileges—until I explained the alternatives.

We’ve been dating for over two years now, and I think he’s learned to enjoy it. An arm or a leg left outside the sheet will start to tingle after a minute but the touch of a human hand is like a soothing flame. Snuggles are welcomed and spoonings are almost required for survival.

Looking up and out, we can see the cloudless and deeply azure, New Haven sky. My mind is drifting and lazily unfocused when I realize Peter’s been talking about something.. the search for extraterrestrial life?

I begin to focus on his words, mid sentence. His voice is a low, rumbly, western drawl - think Henry Fonda in some old black & white western.
“.. when SETI’s searching the heavens (for electronic signals), they listen across a sliver of two microwave regions that are unpolluted by radio waves from natural sources.”

My head’s on his chest and I’m listening more to his warm tones than the words. I say, “Mmm-hmm” and snuggle more deeply into his warmth.

“They call these frequencies the ‘water hole,’ because they correspond to hydrogen and hydroxyl wave lengths (key components of water), in hopes that intelligent life will pick these quiet zones for communication.”

I yawn, drawing in air like a gasp and sink deliciously into his slow breathing rhythms. Peter’s a physicist (that’s spelled ‘nerd’) and I can’t say I understand more than a third of his ellipticals, but the next thing I know it’s morning.

His astronomy lesson was a lullaby.
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The Flower Called Nowhere by Stereolab
Stick Figures In Love by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Moby Octopad by Yo La Tengo
If I Didn't Have You (Live) by Tim Minchin

Peter in the summer morning sun
his cool smile shaded by shadows run
his voice as soothing as coffee’s scent
tell me he wasn’t heaven sent

Peter of Malibu moss and Spanish rose
his lips like light-coral, in kissable repose
his legs slouched akimbo, like a tiger’s limbs
how I long to re-entangle myself in them.

Peter’s quick caress, on windy Tropez beaches
aren’t men the most delightful, of nature's invasive species?
I miss the jeweler’s precision, of his warm and playful hands
and how the sun slowly gifted him, with a model’s golden tan.

Peter sipping coffee under a brittle, New Haven sun,
his rough laugh following something silly I’d done.
There’s no cryptic, localized pathology, happening at the beach,
when the two of us are together, our worlds just seem complete.
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Songs for this:
What the World Needs Now by Tori Holub & James Wilkas
be mine by strongboi

Thoughts can be thin fractures in the order of things.
Sometimes my dorm room seems a sterile sarcophagus, like an accusation, or an interrogation of my romantic choices, with nothing warm or inviting there. Sometimes I’ve just got to get out.

Leong and I decided to go to ‘Toads Place’—a bar right across
the street from campus. Still, it was a 10 minute walk from our
residence.

This night seemed different, not the usual, winter, claustrophobic gray. No, the burning heavens were a canopy of spirals and light events—a show put on by an insecure deity needing to overawe.

It was Charles and Chinthia’s anniversary, so Leong and I went alone. The place was busy, and unsurprisingly, we met up with a few friends, including this guy I’ve been calling soccer-boy. His name is Troy. As the night went on, and the martinis flowed, we kind of hit it off.

I have a boyfriend. He’s far away. Sometimes, his memory’s like a warm beacon broadcasting from that far away. Other times, our connection seems to bleed across that distance, and his questions and concerns seem foreign.

At the end of the night, no, well ok, the start of the morning, a group of us began strolling back to our dorm. It’s safe to say that none of us were feeling any pain. At one point Leong paused to chat with a friend and Troy and I carried on alone.

After a certain amount of Facetiming with the boyfriend, the texture of face-to-face is immediate and mesmerizing. Troy’s eyes are the blue of gas flame and there are a thousand flickery reflections dancing there. When I looked in them, I felt like an astronaut heading out for oblivion

At one point, I realized that we’d left Leong behind and we paused under a streetlamp. After a moment, I leaned back on the pole—it was steadying—and Troy took the opportunity to move in close. Have you ever felt a molasses-feeling of lust that made your legs feel ropey?

I half-began to hum a nonsense song as a distraction from the closeness of him and to regain some mental, objective distance. Then he moved very, very close and I could feel my resolve wavering, like a cardboard construct.

He leaned in and kissed me, quickly and so softly that it was almost a whisper. Then the edge of his fingers brushed against me and faded away. When he really committed to touching me, it was with a coiled restraint, backed by the urgency of a ticking bomb.

He nuzzled my neck as hands moved slowly, with the overflourish of an amateur magician—there was no disguise in it—but there was a kind of magic. The breeze had taken to moaning, or was that me?
It didn’t encompass the full range of my thoughts, but it was a strong, representative sample.

However, something dark was rippling beneath the pleasure, like a shark beneath a sea’s reflective aqua surface—it was common sense, and restraint. At first it felt like I was fighting something that wouldn’t properly show itself. I mean, the pleasures were real, but there was an unreal mechanical overlay to them.

We humans are such blunt instruments. Nature’s given us buttons that can be pushed for its own purposes.

With a quick dart, like a bluebird from a bush, I gained the upper hand on my foggy, lecherous emotions.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, gently pushing him away, “I’m going to have to opt out.” I offered a weak smile.
He was a gentleman, he backed away with a shrug. “Another time,” He said, with a wide devouring smile.
“I have a boyfriend,” I said, kind of late—like it was a matter-of-fact that shouldn’t need repeating.

That’s when Leong arrived, she gave Troy a look like a feral cat. She can have cold, flat, judgmental eyes. For me, she had a frown that I could feel—it was that powerful. She likes Peter—I’d get a talking-to.
“G-night, Troy” she said, her disregard for him made him seem like an outline, not a real person.

As we turned to go on to the dorm, I saw that we’d been under one of those stations they have on campus where you can summon help, and there was a little obsidian surveillance camera.

I wondered how many other 2am noir-romance scenes were playing out on the darkened campus.
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Songs for this:
Beautiful Trash by Lanu & Meg Washington
Princess Crocodile by Gry with FM Einheit and His Orchestra
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our cast: A reader once asked, “Who are these people?” (a solid question)
Leong, (roommate) 21, a ‘molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major,’ is from Macau, China - the Las Vegas of Asia - and she’s a proud communist (don’t knock it til you’ve tried it). Growing up, I lived in Shenzhen China (about 30 miles from Macau) we both speak Cantonese (maybe why we were paired?) and we're able to talk a lot of secret trash together.
Troy, (soccer boy) He’s 6 feet tall and fit. His hair's a rich, thick, mahogany "collegiate mop" (Think Hough Grant) and there's an easy, uncomplicated strength about him—something polished and fresh, he's like a shiny new phone. When he crosses a room, he seems to move in slo-mo. He's a environmental studies major - whatever that is.
Charles, a 54-year-old 6'4" retired NYC cop, has been my escort, driver, security and surrogate parent since I was 9 years old. His wife Cynthia is also an ex-cop and the VP of a cyber-security company. My Grandmère hired Charles for me when a classmate was murdered in Year 7 (6th grade).
Your author, a simple country girl from Athens Georgia, is also a molecular biophysics and biochemistry major (pre-med).

Maybe I’m too simple
or too shallow
but I’m not angry.
What’s wrong with me?

I was trying to think
of someone I hate,
Jews, CIS guys, republicans,
palestinians, blacks, democrats,
the left handed, authority figures,
central americans, parents, vagrants,
the usual suspects, but I’m coming up empty

Things aren’t perfect
don’t get me wrong
I’ve got a pug nose
a flat chest
a giant forehead
and too much work to do
but I’m trying my best—

Worse yet, I’ve no plummeting anxieties
no obvious neurosis
—that one could be a misdiagnosis
no painful hangnails
no sad life tales
no addictions to defend
or hated ex-boyfriends
I have no emo hooks to pin my verse.
no current melodramas to cozen and coerce
between you and me, I think I’m off the rails
It’s really no wonder my poetry pales.

Yeah, that’s what’s wrong with me.
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Songs for this:
Gee, Doctor by Dimie Cat
Sweet Lovin' (feat. Anna-Luca & Iain Mackenzie) by Club des Belugas

It was dark and cold night. Looking back and up, the moon
was a thin and useless crescent, barely visible.
‘What a wasted moon,’ I thought.
“A stupid moon,” I mumbled to myself as if to finish a conversation.
It looked deflated, artificial, soulless, and cold. Not poetic at all.

I’m coping with tough decisions
a victory and perhaps one martini too many.
Peter (my bf) called, when I was at Toads (a local bar).
We usually talk on Tuesdays at about 11.
It was noisy in there
I was a little tipsy.
He became a little irritated.
It didn’t go well.
Martinis and authority don’t mix.

I handed my thesis in today, 80 days early.
I've been working on it obsessively.
finger to lips, like a secret  I can be obsessive.
It’s a 60 page ‘first draft,’ theoretically.
“Can I turn in a first draft for your review?”
He looked surprised, “Sure.” I handed it over, and that’s that.
Every ‘first draft’ I’ve ever handed in has gotten an A.
“You’re CrAzY,” Sunny chuckled, “We gotta celebrate!”

“Please don’t hold the door open,” the librarian said.
I jumped, I hadn’t seen her sneaking up on me.
How long had I been standing there?
I’d been lost in thought.
I focused on her now.
She was 50 maybe, or a hundred—who knew?
Her face needed moisturizing badly,
her wrinkles were like cracks in marble.
She looked frowny.

Why is everyone frowny tonight?
“Sure,” I said, facetiously, throwing my arm up like the door was hot.
The door was now free to close.
And the world was a better place.
Once I’d turned and stepped into the library,
I decided It was too bright and too hot there.
So I left.

The second I was outside, in the refreshing cold, Sunny appeared.
“There you are,” she said, like she had lost something.
“You walk too fast,” and the girl with her laughed.
Sunny can always pick up a girl—it’s like she’s magnetic.
"Let's go home,” she added, “we’re going to pay for this tomorrow.”
She hooked my arm in hers and we followed the path,
the three of us, like the yellow brick road.
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A song for this:
Drunk On Love by Basia
Data & Picard by Pogo

It’s hard to meet someone serious at college. Everyone’s busy,
self-centeredly grinding away at their dreams. So much so that
people tell you to not even try (especially as a freshman).

I was mostly at ease with myself—as a freshman. I had an
excellent skincare routine—it was downright luxuriant, and it
kept me going, through that romantically baren and lonely year.

But we humans hope—we buy lotto tickets to dream on—though we know the awful math. We Gen Z’s seem to have our own unique brand of loneliness, born of covid and Internet-age experience.

My romantic expectations, sophomore year, were low—ok, unmeasurable.

Looking around was depressing. There were socially awkward STEM majors, jocks, frat men (sure the world’s laid-out just for them) and ‘CSOM Bros" (business majors more interested in parlaying my Grandmère’s money than me) and the elusive, emotionally reserved, ‘regular guys.’

But the unexpected can happen. We all know how crowded campus coffee shops are—the students move in and out in tides as noisy as the real, salty ocean. And then there you were, a rumpled, 25-year-old doctoral student—from another world—asking to share my table.

The loudest thing in that room was your sense of stillness. You seemed to be a new and distinct species, and as we talked, you seemed to somehow smooth my anxious edges. After a few meets, the thought, ‘I really like this guy,’ seemed to have its own gravity.

We somehow managed to thread the ‘too busy to care’ dynamic, and as time went by, you helped me channel my absurd, fiery, pastel-painted, first-love, early-twenty girlhood heat into something longer lasting, deep and authentic. Congratulations! It’s been two years.

Separating now, would be like removing the salt from the sea.
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Songs for this:
Playing House by Kudu
So Much Mine by The Story
After Last Night by The Revlons

Let's wax poetic - wax on..

We’re in for it
When we enter
the insubstantial country of love

That secret theater, in an invisible mansion of moods

it’s a resort that houses its share of speechless monologues and sore disappointments, all lovers know that, but there are infinite discoveries too—secret, intimate delights and sensual confidences.

Ok, wax off.

My horoscope this morning said, “any tension you’re experiencing now is just part of the process.”

Peter (my bf), flew in last night. When we’re separated too long, remembering him, remembering us, can at times, seem like a memory exercise and I find myself wondering if I’m wasting my bikini years on a handshake deal. Then we’re reunited and bam, I’m reminded why it’s a ‘dub-u, dub’ again.

He’s a delectation—in a Christmas bauble kind of way—shiny and dangerous because I want to touch him—but not be loud or showy about it. Leeza (Lisa’s 14-year-old sister) whispered to me, when I was getting some ice, “You watch him with the too-still poise of a cat about to strike.” I smiled at the complement because I love cats.

Every once in a while I’ll pinch him, to make sure he’s real. “Oww! Stop that!
“What?!” I ask, pulling back as if innocently confused.

I got him a room at the Marriott Essex House. It’s 400 feet down W59th from Lisa’s building entrance to the front door of his hotel. I measured it off, with urgent steps—then I helped him unpack. We unpacked a lot.

Later, we joined Dave and Lisa for a Christmas light tour—Manhattan’s flexing its wow-factor for us.

I didn’t get to sit on Santas lap this year, I’m a little old for that,
but I did get what I wanted most—I’m sure I’m grinning like an idiot.
It’s not quite Christmas yet, but thanks, Santa.

🎄Merry Christmas🎄🕎Happy Hanukkah 🕎🌟Merry Kwanzaa🌟
💈Happy Festivas!💈
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Songs for this:
Heat Wave by Linda Ronstadt
Same Songs by Kelly Jones
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Two days until Christmas.. how ‘bout some Christmas playlists?
https://daweb.us/xmas/
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dub-u, dub = a big win

Peter (my bf) flew away early this morning,
like Shakespeare’s eagle, “leaving no tracks.”
Now I lie here, as a leftover or Millais’ drowned ‘Ophelia’.

That’s an image ripped from adolescent, female visual culture.

Time‘s adversarial magic drags us ever future-wise,
eroding sweet moments we would cling to.

Shall we poetize?

I want a quiet afternoon,
on the bright side of the moon.

It’s an actual-factual place,
convenient, in close outer space,
like mythical Elysium, Shangri-La or Valhalla
where I’d still be intertwined with my fella,
like characters from literature or legend.

A place where “I’ll get to it tomorrow,”
is, alas, an everlasting pass,
because on the dusty, unreeling moon,
tomorrow never arrives,
our lovers never have to go,
and we can relax, ******* clothed,
simply enjoying the everlasting earthrise.
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Songs for this:
To The Moon by Meghan Trainor
Moon River by Frank Ocean

Peter (my bf) is coming to town - tonight. I’m breathy with excitement.
My energy is so sick. “Someone scrape her off the walls,” Leong remarked, as I bounded out of my room this morning.
Lisa winced, holding her hand up, as if to block the sun, “You never smile in the morning.”   “And she’s humming,” Sunny observed.
“I’m not,” I started, then after a pause I amended, “yeah, I guess I was.”

I’m not just happy, I’m some new kind of happy. It’s been too long.
I’m swinging a school’s-out, pre-Christmas, free iced-latte vibe.
I’ve been on the busiest stretch, clearing my schedule. I have to define my thesis this semester. Argh!

But I’m ready for some bf fun. I’ve changed my sheets, hidden the general mess and God, even vacuumed.
That’s very un-university-like behavior - believe me.
As down as I was last Friday night, from tanking that quiz, that’s how up I am now.

Speaking of that quiz, the only way to deal with a fret is to exorcize it, defeat it, vanquish it. I stalked the TA after class last Tuesday, finally cornering him, like a wounded animal at his desk.
“I tanked last week’s quiz,” I admitted, which sounded way more whiny out loud than it did in my head.
“Vionet, right?” He’d asked rhetorically, already clicking his keyboard to bring up the grade sheet.
“Are there any extra cred..” I began. “You got an 88,” he interrupted me. “Yeah, but,” I’d begun again
“That’s a B,” he’d deadpanned in a low, ‘why do I have to talk to idiots,’ voice.
“Yeah, but,” I’d began freshly, only to be re-interrupted.
“A weekly quiz,” he’d said, “like a hundredth of your grade.”  
“A B,” I began, shaking my head side to side in a ‘no’ way, but I’d smiled ingratiatingly too - I was going to win this guy over.
“You’re way too tightly wound,” he’d snarked, insensitively.
I opened my mouth to speak again when he said “OUT,” twisting his head to nod towards the door.
“You don’t,” I began, only to have him give me a teen-like, wide-eyed look as he nodded again at the door.
So, I flounced out, giving a silent voice to my indignation.
Bureaucracies.
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Songs for this:
Take Off Ur Pants by Indigo De Souza
Kool Thing by Sonic Youth
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Our cast
Peter, (My bf), is a bearded, 27-year-old from the sage hills of Malibu, California. He’s 6’1, too thin, his jet-black hair is perpetually uncombed and his skin is pale from over exposure to fluorescent lighting. He earned his PhD in Applied Physics last year and now he works for CERN in Geneva. He’s smart, quiet, awkward and he can be too serious. I’m unreasonably cRaZy about this guy.

Lisa, (roommate) 21, my bff and Manhattanite ‘glamor girl’ (who’d bristle at that description but it’s hundo-p true.) who grew up in a 50th floor Central Park South high-rise. A (pre-med) molecular biophysics and biochemistry major.

Leong, (roommate) 21, a ‘molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major,’ is from Macau, China - the Las Vegas of Asia and she’s a proud communist (don’t knock it til you’ve tried it). Growing up, I lived in Shenzhen China (about 30 miles from Macau) we both speak Cantonese (maybe why we were paired?) and we're able to talk a lot of secret trash together.

Sunny, (suitemate) 21, a (pre-med) molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major, is a cowgirl from Nebraska (seriously, she has a quarter horse and barrel races). She’s an outspoken fem-facing ladies-lady.

Your author, a simple country girl from Athens, Georgia is also a (pre-med) molecular biophysics and biochemistry major.

My boyfriend Peter’s like smoke, he’s elusive. He doesn’t always carry his phone.

There’s a crosswalk in Tokyo, it’s in all the movies. The light changes and hundreds of people walking in different directions meet - but they don’t collide - they make room for each other, flowing around each other like water.

Peter and I make room for each other. Then we come together and we make something. We’re of such different textures - we come from stark counterpoints but somehow, we mesh.

He’s the first person I go to with an idea because I trust him and I think he understands me. He’s my secret weapon. His advice is a coin I’m careful with.

He’s gone through the long slog and achieved a dream. And he did it poor. He fought a guerilla war with almost no resources. He lived in crowded spaces, existed on Ramen noodles and saltine crackers, taking any job to cover.

He’s practical, goal oriented and he can be unsympathetic. He’ll whisper, “Nutup up, tinkerbell - you’re such a baby,” but there's a supportive energy to it - and he’s usually right. He heralds a reality I’m not always used to.

Anyway, he was smoky tonight. I couldn’t reach him. Sometimes we go over a week without talking (I'm not always reachable either) and when we do, it feels intimate and victory-like.
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Song for this:
Come in from the cold by Marc Broussard
One Two Three by Hooverphonic