What You Were Writing
by A. A. Parr
for the person sitting next to me in the library

You didn’t want me
to know
what you were
writing,

hunched your
shoulder
a little over
the paper,

feigned a moment
where you
needed to
stretch,

glanced my way
not kindly -
full of hostile
insecurities,

full of yourself
and your ideas,
despite your own
fears of

brutal inadequacy,
of judgment,
of me deeming you
unworthy,

of me,
the stranger watching
you, the person living
this actual moment

instead of merely
recording it
as someone else
lives it for you -

unless, of course,
you were also
writ...

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