Group Project: Create a Community

How can i think,
when i sit in classrooms built by men
to teach us how to think like them,
and i try—
god, i try to conjugate freedom
in a language that was never mine,
in a room that doesn't feel like home,
while he breathes next to me
like a soft apocalypse.

He taps his pen two seats over
like he's spelling me out in morse code,
and i'm listening,
god, i'm listening
even though i know
he never studied the language 
of undoing.

He listens to Mitski.
He says "I get it."
He doesn't.
but i still want to hold his hand
like it hasn't held
a thousand tiny privileges
it never noticed.

Not all men,
but why is it always a man:
interrupting, explaining, staring too long.
loving too little, or loving just right enough
to make me forget how much it costs
to be soft in a world
built on stone.

And still,
i save him a seat
in the margins of my revolution.
i write his name
beside Simone de Beauvoir
like he belongs there,
like he earned the ink.

But I’m not the only one.

There’s a girl in the back
chewing on her pen like it’s a weapon,
one in the front row,
circling every “however” in her textbook
like it’s a lifeline,
one with chipped black nails
and a laugh like a warning bell,
we see each other.
we know the code—
the flinch in the hallway,
the practiced laugh,
the way we say no with our eyes first.
 

We share glances like smuggled notes,
we build a silent syllabus
between our stares.
we form a group project
with no due date:
survive the patriarchy,
redefine belonging,
and make a home out of the margins.

He says “I’m a feminist.”
he means it like a password.
like a mirror.
like an invitation.
and I nod,
though my hands want to build
something he will never touch.

He texts: “u up?”
and I am—
wide awake between the theory and the ache,
between revolution
and the curve of his shoulder.

I want to be
a group chat full of rage and laughter.
a seminar where no one gets interrupted.
a zine passed under desks.
a desk carved with the names of the girls
who made it through,
who weren’t quiet,
who carried each other when they couldn’t carry themselves,
who still wear crop tops like armor,
who are angry and holy and healing.

Not all men,
but god, it always is a man
in the hallway,
in the headline,
in the daydream—
pulling me into silence
when I’m trying to scream
my own name.

and still, i sit beside him,
pen in hand, smile stitched on,
letting him think
he invented the questions
i answered years ago.