Chapter 10:

"Her Voice, My Undoing"

The Student Perspective:

She doesn't raise her voice

she doesn't need to.

A syllable from her mouth

crawls under my skin

like silk wrapping around nerves.

In class, I watch the way

she glides through theories,

how she draws lines between philosophy

and the everyday wounds we hide.

Her hands speak too elegant,

with fingers that could command storms.

Today she wore her glasses low,

and I stared too long.

She looked up.

Smiled.

That smile

it didn't feel like praise.

It felt like knowledge.

Like she knew I spent hours

imagining her voice at night

when my hands tremble beneath sheets.

I don't think she teaches from the book anymore.

I think she teaches me.

And I'm not learning facts

I'm learning how it feels

to ache for a woman

who speaks in metaphors

and moves like temptation.

I stayed after class today.

I pretended to ask about the reading,

but all I remember

was how close we stood.

Her perfume wasn't floral

it was dry, sharp like wind before lightning.

It stayed on my sweater long after she left.

I took the long walk back to my dorm

clutching the memory of her eyes

green, deliberate, cruel in their precision.

She is the question

and the answer I can't say aloud.

She is the slow descent

into something that will ruin me.

And I think

I want to be ruined by her.