Professor, Professor || BWAM

the fortieth.

-KAZEM-

7 1/2 weeks left of the semester

5:45 am

I wake up, offer fajr, then I'm off, jogging around the neighborhood, hoping the tension of exercise will offer me enough of a distraction from my own thoughts.

Or should I say thought...

She has been the only thing on my mind.

The other elements and factors surrounding her are irrelevant.

It's nearly pitch black out, the sky just starting to burst with streaks of color from the palette of daybreak.

I hardly take in my surroundings, I'm completely inside my own head, running on autopilot.

I don't even notice just how hard my heart is thumping in my chest because whenever I think of her, it beats at that rhythm anyway.

I'm losing my structure, my sharp edges. I can feel it. I can feel myself slipping away. My focus, my discipline.

 It's so much harder to commit to things that formerly came to me with little to no forethought.

 I feel lethargic to get up in the mornings.

 Planning my outfits is such a task now. 

Sometimes even finishing my meals feels like a challenge.

I round the corner and see a fellow jogger coming from the opposite direction, staring me down. I keep my distance of course, giving him the usual runner's nod greeting but he just glares at me as he passes by.

What's his problem? And why does he look so familiar? Maybe one of the students who dropped my class.

After my run, I head back to my house to wash up and then over to the grocery store to pick up some food for the week. As I roll my cart from aisle to aisle, I look around at the other shoppers and wonder what they feel. What they hide in their minds that the naked eye of even their closest loved ones couldn't possibly perceive.

What would the mother with the meticulous grocery list think of that kiss?

What would the elderly couple with an odd number of cucumbers in their cart say about me constantly thinking about this girl in the way that I do?

What would the gym bro say about me feeling jealous about a girl who could never be mine?

None of my answers yield good results. In fact, they all lead to the same conclusion: I need a new TA.

I can't thrive in the environment I'm currently in. I can't give my students my all when half of it goes to her. I've tried to control it, I've tried to manage it as to not lose her, but I'm afraid it's inevitable. I have to distance myself from her. She won't leave voluntarily. She's required to have a campus job as per her scholarship...

It's simple, so why does it feel so difficult?

Something about her makes me want to give it all to her. 

She doesn't even ask, and I know she doesn't need my time or attention. But, I feel this innate force to just offer myself up to her on a platter. I want her to have me. 

The mind is unwilling and the flesh is indeed, weak. So, so weak.

I pass by the aisle with the halal wine and sigh as I stare into my reflection in the bottle.