College — A Poem for the Parts
To the only cute guy I saw at my Sunday entrance exam timeslot,
thank you. Before I saw you I told my friend despairingly
that all the cute guys must have been at church
To the girl with the guitar at the freshman talent show,
If I met you today I could sing the original song you sang
Right back to you word for word. Thank you
To the boy with the six pack
who showed up late to English Lit without fail,
and the six footer in Philippine Media who asked if he could write about
porn for his midterm paper,
thank you for being who you were — or hopefully still are
Thank you to my 8 AM pandemic-era powerboxing coach.
You have no idea who I am I never woke up in time for your classes and scrolled through your whole canvas course three hours before the final submission but I enjoyed what I learned in those three hours so thank you
Thank you to the far-between success stories
Of randomized grouping:
my darling Ethics groupmate
And the four Econ seniors who intimidated me less
When i imagined them to be my adoptive fathers
Thank you to Camille from the party
And Alexa from the bar.
Kath from October 30,
you’re what IG story likes are for.
To the sophomore in the nice outfit
On Berchmann’s bathroom floor,
I hope you l̶e̶f̶t̶ h̶i̶m̶ feel better
Thank you, boy at karaoke,
for your beautiful authentic rendition
of Lights Down Low by Max Schneider.
To my core I’m a country girl
To the special appearance characters
who I see on some days, and pretend not to
on others: sometimes you just wonder whether one interaction merits multiple recurring hellos.
I’ll always be about three hellos away.
Thank you to:
- The thirst trapper
- The Spotify reposter
- The NBA spammer
Collectively, my Instagram roster. My Pinterest board for boys. My hypothetical hoe phase hoes. Ridiculous reminders that some people will never
appear to you whole,
and for that reason, you love them as parts.
The weight of their part-ness — shy smiles and shadows
and no-name roses
and 0–8–1–2–2–1-Umbrella by Rihanna
and laughter from two rooms down
– stacking up and up inside you,
until you’re Alexa from the bar. And the first and only boy you’d kiss in a subdivision park. And the girl and her driver who brought everyone home, even if she didn’t have to.
Until you prepare to leave, somehow feeling smaller than the sum of everyone’s parts. How do you write about evolution,
if not part by little part?
