When I Go To College

When I Go To College

When I go to college I will be sweater-clad, frost bitten, books at my hips I will flip weekly through men, like the dog-eared pages of Steven King novels my uncle warned me about. I will speak to men who speak loftily of ‘literary citizenship’ and I will nod, I will become the knots in mahogany walls, I will see things in frames per second, I will press my fingernails into waning crescent moons on my palm and crime doesn’t work the way they tell you on the tours. The blue light will do nothing at night but blare and I will envy the screeches outside my window, watch older women catch glimpses of themselves in me and I in them as I find pleasure in the crossword, in sweaters and they will tell me to stop my youth in its tracks, to freeze it in red brick, so when we link eyes, I’ll look away.

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