Free In the Wake of Wanting by Lori L. Otto

wrote a poem. I never expected that format. We’re in a journalism class. We write for The Columbia Daily Witness , not The American Reader .
    “You weren’t joking about wanting to be a poet, huh? You are a poet.” She doesn’t respond.
     
    Part I
     
    It apparently has two parts?
     
    His skin is fair, unblemished, smooth and pale.
     
    And she wrote it in iambic pentameter…
     
    His smile caught my eye across the room.
    His stature built, he’s not just any male–
    Trey Holland is a god, I must assume.
     
    I huff aloud, realizing I made no progress on Monday with my mission to humanize myself to Coley. A god, I am not. I look across the table at her, but she’s got her head tucked into her crossed arms, and I don’t guess she’ll be looking up at me anytime soon. She knows what I’m reading. She knows what she wrote.
     
    My heart rate soared; my pulse began to race
    The second that his blue eyes locked on mine.
    Embarrassed was the look upon my face.
    I knew this intervention was divine.
     
    Since I was young, I’ve had a crush on Trey.
    But photos that I’ve seen of him are wrong.
    He’s always poised, a rich man’s son cliché.
    Perfection, clean cut, mannered, straight and strong.
     
    In suit and tie, he always played the part:
    Polite and kind, intelligent and good.
    This heir maintained this image from the start.
    The role he played, he always understood.
     
    In public, his persona is a lie.
    In private, I intend to find out why.
     
    Something in me awakens at this. An alertness; excitement. If she were to see me right now, she’d see a smirk at the challenge she’s made to herself. In eighteen lines, she’s admitted she has a crush on me; she believes our partnership is divine intervention; she knows I’m forced to put on a façade when I’m in the public eye; and in the hour she spent with me, she seems to think there’s something more to me. To top it all off, she put it all out there in the form of a damn Shakespearean sonnet.
    Who is this little laureate?
    And what will part two say?
    I look across the table once more, just to see if courage has roused her to lift her head, her eyes, but she still appears to be completely deflated.
     
    Part II
     
    The guy I met today wore rumpled clothes.
    Disheveled tresses fell upon his ear.
    A shadow lined his jaw and skimmed his nose
    Though five o’clock was nowhere even near.
     
    He laughed aloud like no one else was there.
    His prep school language arts, he left behind
    When he made gestures, then began to swear
    With words like shit and damn; it blew my mind.
     
    While some would be offended, I was not.
    I looked at him in awe, in shock–in love
    With the idea that Trey and I’d be caught:
    Us–cursing, laughing–all of the above.
     
    And then, at once, his eyes grew serious.
    Intensity expended; clinched my soul.
    The feelings. Passion. Heat. Mysterious.
    Unbridled. Rough and rash. Out of control.
     
    “Shit.” My voice startles me. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the awareness of my briefs getting tighter forces out the obscenity. This isn’t the time, nor the place… nor the girl . But seriously. Shit .
     
    He read my thoughts–of this, I have no doubt.
    I want to know this guy, inside and out.
     
    I’m breathing heavily at the end of it, trying to figure out what to do with these sonnets. Trying to figure out what to do with these feelings . I have no idea about either.
    “Coley.”
    “Yeah?” she asks, the sound muffled because she refuses to look at me.
    “Hey.” Please let me see your pretty face . She picks up her head and squints her eyes at me with uncertainty. I put my hand on her arm and look into her eyes. “Coley, you can’t turn this in.”
    “I can’t?” she asks.
    “No,” I state, shaking my head with authority.
    “You don’t like them?”
    “It’s not that…”
    “Then why?”
    Before I can think, I blurt out my reply, just as she guesses what it will be.
    “Because it’s