#diaries - Hello Poetry

You hope that university will answer all of life’s questions, but nope. I don’t know, I. There was a guy who’d been hanging around outside our residence lately. Too consistently. At first, I thought he was someone’s friend but he’s always alone. He wasn’t doing anything or bothering my roommates, but that asymmetry set off my alarms. He looked at me once (which I suppose isn’t a crime), I think, it was quick - a blink of sharp curiosity. I mentioned it to Charles who took his picture. The next morning he said the guy’s a legit student who has no criminal record, so maybe I’m all wrong. Every girl’s encountered a creep or two before. They’re seemingly everywhere, as if mandated by law, like auto insurance. Most girls develop a sixth sense, a creep-dar. Nowadays, creeps have a new name, “incel” ("involuntary celibate") and they’re a recognized, online subculture. Next, they’ll have a coat of arms proclaiming, “We Would if We Could.” It’s as if awkwardness, a normal human foible, has been distilled into something dangerous. Although the campus looks like a garden or a perfectly manicured ‘stepford’ park, we joke that it’s really a locked-down, patrolled, surveilled compound, with guards, cameras and card-key access to everything. Which, I suppose, is all to the good. Our creeper wasn’t there Friday, and he wasn’t there today, so maybe he was nothing. I don’t know, 2. I was in Sunny’s room. We were going shopping in a few. There was a little pink book on her bed - a diary!! I’d never seen it before and it was open, about three-quarters of the way. She too-casually moved to scoop it up, like the neglected book of a sorcerer. My GOSSIP-dar Alerted like a class bell. “Hmm” I hummed, head-tilted, then I laughingly lunged for the book. Sunny’s eyes went wide for 3-billionths of a second and she snapped it up with the speed of a striking cobra, “That’s MINE” she said, rigid with seriousness. “What’s going ON?!” I asked, but she shoved it into her night table. Another mystery! ‘Sleeping dogs,’ I thought to myself.

0

Apr 10, 2023

Apr 10, 2023 at 2:38 PM UTC

anaisvionet

I don’t know

You hope that university will answer all of life’s questions, but nope. I don’t know, I. There was a guy who’d been hanging around outside our residence lately. Too consistently. At first, I thought he was someone’s friend but he’s always alone. He wasn’t doing anything or bothering my roommates, but that asymmetry set off my alarms. He looked at me once (which I suppose isn’t a crime), I think, it was quick - a blink of sharp curiosity. I mentioned it to Charles who took his picture. The next morning he said the guy’s a legit student who has no criminal record, so maybe I’m all wrong. Every girl’s encountered a creep or two before. They’re seemingly everywhere, as if mandated by law, like auto insurance. Most girls develop a sixth sense, a creep-dar. Nowadays, creeps have a new name, “incel” ("involuntary celibate") and they’re a recognized, online subculture. Next, they’ll have a coat of arms proclaiming, “We Would if We Could.” It’s as if awkwardness, a normal human foible, has been distilled into something dangerous. Although the campus looks like a garden or a perfectly manicured ‘stepford’ park, we joke that it’s really a locked-down, patrolled, surveilled compound, with guards, cameras and card-key access to everything. Which, I suppose, is all to the good. Our creeper wasn’t there Friday, and he wasn’t there today, so maybe he was nothing. I don’t know, 2. I was in Sunny’s room. We were going shopping in a few. There was a little pink book on her bed - a diary!! I’d never seen it before and it was open, about three-quarters of the way. She too-casually moved to scoop it up, like the neglected book of a sorcerer. My GOSSIP-dar Alerted like a class bell. “Hmm” I hummed, head-tilted, then I laughingly lunged for the book. Sunny’s eyes went wide for 3-billionths of a second and she snapped it up with the speed of a striking cobra, “That’s MINE” she said, rigid with seriousness. “What’s going ON?!” I asked, but she shoved it into her night table. Another mystery! ‘Sleeping dogs,’ I thought to myself.