"She Doesn't Know I'm Already Hunting"
The Teacher:
They call me professional.
Respected.
Disciplined.
But beneath this blazer and composed silence
I am a creature with velvet fangs.
And she
she is my unwitting offering.
She walks into my class like a question
wide eyed, naïve,
all soft voice and tender movements,
and yet she wears those skirts like she's asking
to be noticed.
So I notice.
In the way predators do.
Quietly. Deeply.
Until even her footsteps feel like possession.
I don't touch her.
Not yet.
But my gaze is heavier than fingertips.
It traces her when she looks down,
presses into the back of her neck
when she takes notes with flushed cheeks.
She thinks she's observing me.
She doesn't realize
she's being studied.
Measured.
Marked.
When she answers questions wrong,
I correct her slowly
each word dipped in a tone
that makes her shift in her chair.
When she lingers after class,
pretending to ask about lectures,
I let silence stretch.
I speak low.
I take a step closer
just to see her nerves stutter.
And when I say her name,
I say it like a promise
or a sentence.
She doesn't see the danger.
She thinks this is all some curious game
her mind is too innocent to finish.
But I am not a dream for her to explore
I am a hunger that wraps silk around her throat
and waits.
She will fall.
Because I will let her think it's her idea.
Because I will teach her that no one else
will ever look at her like I do
like I already own the version of her
that even she doesn't understand yet.
She will try to fight it.
And I will let her.
Because the most exquisite prey
always runs a little first.
But soon
she will come to me.
Trembling. Wanting.
And when she does,
I'll unmake her carefully.
Like a poem.
Line by line.
Until all she knows
is me.