You look good from far away

like all those times in autumn
when i'd recognize the slope of your shoulders

but then today i saw you up close:

1. sitting only a seat away from me in class in that same lecture hall
2. waving hi to her while she was talking to me in the bookstore
3. loitering around the b-center walkway as she and I left the bookstore nearly ten minutes after you'd left
4. catching a conversation with her in the Great Hall as I stood awkwardly to the side.
5. walking by the cash register in the cafeteria that evening.

(that's a record number in one day)

it feels disgusting
the way my mind practices this alchemy over and over
of turning the ordinary things into the extraordinary
of perceiving the glittering of gold from the rusting of iron