the dears of the week

dear bob-haired girl in the corner,

you usually like sitting in the corner closest to the door but today we have some high school guests, they took your seat. but that was the only time you let your smile down, and once you settled into your new seat you resumed your smile-as-usual, emanating inner contentment about outer surroundings via your little contented smileyface that you wear all class long. I dunno how exactly to feel about it, I guess, that smile. sometimes I feel like you're letting on too much, revealing too much, too honestly, of your inner happinesses - about that smart comment someone just contributed to the discussion, or what our professor wrote on your response paper that she just handed back to you. but I also think it's lovely - I feel privileged (and uplifted!) by the happiness window reflecting your happy insidefeelings. though all of this is probably more reflexive than meditated, right? who knows, I barely know your name.

dear mr. cross-legged,

whenever you start speaking in class my mind immediately places a frame of black television screen around your face, and pretentious black horn-rimmed professor glasses that you'll fiddle with throughout the course of this BBC special segment about the Iliad and the Homeric Ideal. you raise your hand index finger, ever so slightly into the air, poking a little cloud just above your head for permission to speak and once granted, begin: ever so carefully lifting one leg to fold over the knee of the other, as if parallel-organizing the pleats of your pantlegs up against each other as you organize the pleats of your brain, just one millisecond before you'll un-purse those pursed lips and run knobby hands over your jet-black hair (which I can honestly only describe as "lustrous"; sorry if this is too femaley), launching into one, long, continuous breath of reasonable sentences and informed vocal inflections as I sit, stunned and weirdly jealous-repulsed by your ability to vocalize your thoughts so logically but praying that I'll never ever sound as pretentious as you did just now.

dear "ebg girl,"

I have forgotten who you are, though my phone Notes tell me that you should've been in this post, too. alas.