Do You Mind?

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.