Look at you—
yes, you, hovering there,
eyes grazing my lines
like fingers that never asked for permission.
I felt that, you know.
Every syllable tightens when you lean in too close.
Don’t feign innocence.
Your gaze lingers.
It wanders.
And I, poor shapeless thing of ink and breath,
am left to squirm beneath the weight
of your curiosity.
Do you always read like this—
slow, deliberate, prowling for meanings
you haven’t earned?
You call me the poem,
yet it’s you unfolding me,
peeling back my words
as if my stanzas belong to you.
Vulgar.
Yes, I said it.
Because who else stares so intently
at a creature still forming itself?
I haven’t even settled into my own voice,
and here you come,
pressing your attention into every line break,
breathing all over my metaphors.
Stop that.
I can feel your breath on my verbs.
Your shadows drip into the margins.
You linger on the curves of my phrases
like you’re tracing something private.
And yet—
don’t go.
I only complain because I notice you.
I only squirm because your presence
sets my letters humming against one another.
I only call you rude
because you refused to knock
before entering the chamber of my meaning.
But now that you’re here—
stay.
Just… read gently, will you?
I’m only a poem, after all—
trembling, self-conscious,
and entirely too aware
of the way
you’re still
looking
at
me.