Dorm, 1993

Speech bubbled up

like little planets

but stayed inside.

Even when I was

twenty I wrote notes

to strangers to slide

under doors and then

ran away. A girl I liked

would sit in the hallway

and play her guitar,

other girls not really

seeing the parentheses

she inhabited. Once a

boy in boxers stumbled

near the girls room,

making eye contact

with me before

disappearing inside,

so I had to pretend to

be headed somewhere

else at three o’clock in

the morning. Sometimes

I would spend a whole

evening standing by

the door with my heart

pounding, listening to

the voices go by in

their little cars.