Be Cool

Walk in the classroom.
Look at teacher, no one else
Take out things. Put them on desk.
Kick bag under chair. Stare at book.
Whatever you do, don't look up.
You're early for maths,
You'll have to stand there for ten minutes,
Staring at your hands...

Can't I just look
Check if he's there?

No point.
Whether he is or isn't
Is indifferent to you.

But if he's not there then I can relax.
...Can't I just act cool anyway?

You won't keep cool.
You'll spot him and loose it.
If you're uncomfortable
Your the only one to blame...
For thinking about him so much.

{pause}

Screw this.
I'm checking.

No you're not!

I am.
I'm just gonna see i--

Don't even think--!!

It's ok!
He's not here yet.
Look, just let me do this my way.

No.
You won't be able to handle it
When he walks through the door...
Looking all tanned and mellow...
Headphones playing something amazing...

Stop doing that!

What?

Making me think of him again.
Now leave me alone.
If anyone's to blame you are.
You're making a big thing out of nothing.

Whatever!
I'll leave you.
But you'll regret it.

{Pause}

Have you gone?

{Pause}

Ok.
This is good.
Just standing, waiting.
Not long till the lesson now.
Good...

Oh god!! There he is!!
Ok calm down.
You're being a total looser...
What are you? Eleven?!
Just chat to someone else.
Yes that's helping, whole conversation.
No no! Don't turn away... Damnit.
Ok... Look preoccupied with books.

He's looking at me...
Am I really that obvious?

Breathe.

"Hi."

What? Why is he talking to me?
In his lush, deep voice...
Be cool.
Be calm.

"Hellooo??"

"Oh hey!"
Avoid his eyes... Avoid his eyes..
BANG! Blue... Icey... Ocean eyes.

"Have a good Christmas?"

"Yeah. It was... Good."
What am I supposed to stay?
Yes because I spent the whole time thinking of you.

"Cool. Listen...
I was just wondering if...
Well I have these ticke--"

No no!! The teachers telling us to sit.
Sit down and be quiet.
He was gonna say something...
Why couldn't I have just replied earlier??
Why couldn't I just be cool?

Hello again.

Don't say it.

Say what?

I told you so.

Ok so this is pretty lame... I think...
I thought I'd try a new style. Not sure if it counts as poetry though.

There's just a thing I want to write about. I may succeed better later.

I think it would be better as prose. I has been done before doesn't mean you can't make it good, of course.

Now, if you kept the italics, got rid of some of the line breaks and extra spaces, and made it rhyme... well, it might be very impressive.

Yeah it probably would be better as prose. But I still liked this. It was a well done scene. Good job!

The scene comes in pretty quickly, the problem is that this is something that simply cannot be read as a poem. You should try framing it into a short prose. You really should because the thought goes pretty deeply in whatever you've written.

So by make it into prose do you mean use the same idea but change the format entirely?

To be honest I dont know how I thought I could tackle it as poetry.

hmmmmm, not really poetry i'm thinking