Love Poem

Seeing you for six hours in a row would compensate your absence,
the cancelled sessions
the narrow classroom,
the cold day.

I missed your intensity.
It was snowing outside.
Weather matters.

It was a sixty-steps walk to the classroom.
You, standing at the end of the corridor,
waiting for your group and the conversations,
making time feel real.

It was a forty-steps walk to the classroom.
Your kindness at its best,
your gestures of politeness,
forcing time to run slower.

It was a twenty-steps walk to the classroom.
Capturing my approach with your formalities,
Expanding the distance with your voice.
Time goes dense, impossible. Add some nice glitching.

The moment I am one step away from your oldish beauty,
I am sent fifty-nine steps back to my desk.
The loop starts again.

I might not be able to love you,
but effortless, I walk those 59 steps again.
And again.

Now, at the end of the corridor, there is only one more step to reach you.
The loop doesn’t start.
This time I am passing by your side.
For a second, we are finally looking at each other in between hello protocols.
Here, my intensity.
I melt.
The weather doesn’t matter.