Awkward Eye Contact | Teen Ink

Awkward Eye Contact

February 15, 2023
By shorrmiel GOLD, New York City, New York
shorrmiel GOLD, New York City, New York
10 articles 0 photos 0 comments

It must go without anything following for it to count.

It must be an accident that makes you want to cry.

I’m not picky, but my favorite kind is when it comes with a history.

The kind of eye contact that only lasts .5 milliseconds but somehow replays everything you did with that person.

A montage of what will from now on go

unspoken.

A quick trip

gone in the blink of any eye,

literally. 

For a moment you are all the other person sees. Just you.

They can go on to shift their gaze south,

west, southwest, northeast,

but for that one moment in time you were theirs.

My favorite is the kind that makes you have a cheeky smile.

A pinkened cheek

A sudden vomit in your throat.

The kind that reflexively brings your hand up to smack yourself in the face because you're sure your hair was messed up or you had something in your teeth.

Sure, “Eyes are the window to the soul” but

personally I’ve come to think of eyes as marbles. 

They continuously rotate, slip, accelerate,

and only pause for a reason.

I simply love being the reason your marbles pause. 


The author's comments:

When asked to write about what I look forward to I thought about eye contact. As a teen, somethings are just fundamentally in our DNA. Awkward eye contact is one of them. I think that this piece is universally relatable. I have turned my hatred of awkward eye contact into something I look forward to. It is silly. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like a child and I love it.


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AnonUser124 said...
on Feb. 21 2023 at 9:51 pm
AnonUser124, New York, New York
0 articles 0 photos 2 comments
Very nice poem. Very creative and relatable topic.