this is not the place this is not the place where our eyes used to meet— across the crowded room halogens shining on the desks that i had drawn on while the professor droned and students slept, our half-finished coffees grown tepid on the desk this is not the place where your fingers used to find the hollow of my collarbone and press until i sighed, waiting in the elevator at 11am, stolen touches replacing bruises on my skin this is not my voice— words reverberate into stale, half-finished sonnets that years later will make me feel ashamed in ways that i wish i could regret, but the daydream was to steal away together… ...it’s beautiful here and i’m thinking maybe i can handle the nondescript charm of a podunk little freeway town and the way the fingers of fog feel as they caress my face i’m beginning not to mind the anonymity of the trees and my new life as he sits at his desk to type and... if Alfred Prufrock could see me now, he would hate my flannel jacket
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