Page 39 of Poet & Protector

“You were supposed to bring a poem to show me.”

“You brought three,” I replied a little too quickly. “That’s plenty.”

“I should read whatever you brought,” he said firmly.

“Why?” I countered, starting to feel nervous. “We can just go from what you picked.”

“This is supposed to be collaborative,” Nev argued. “If you don’t offer some of your own opinions, it kind of misses the point of the assignment.”

“I mean…maybe?”

“I’m not wrong,” Nev insisted. He wasn’t going to drop this anytime soon. Or ever.

I hesitated. I did have a favorite poem that I brought along, but it was…revealing, and we hadn’t read it in class. It wasn’t like any of the poems Nev picked. I wasn’t sure what he would make of it, but it didn’t seem fair to contribute nothing when he’d immediately shown me three poems he liked. And he made a good point about the whole collaboration thing.

“There is one,” I said.

“Yeah?” He leaned back. “What is it?”

Worrying I was about to embarrass the hell out of myself, I turned the pages of my notebook until I found the poem and gave it to him.

Nev glanced down and went very still.

The poem, Walt Whitman’s ‘Are you the new person drawn toward me?’ wasn’t simply a poem I liked. I found it when we had to write biographical essays about key modern poets and I got Whitman.

I ended up reading lots of his poetry, but this poem grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I’d become so fascinated by it I copied it down in my notebook and read it so many times I had it memorized. The words resonated in my bones. They made me feel seen.

Are you the new person drawn toward me?

To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;

Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?

Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?

Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?

Do you think I am trusty and faithful?

Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?

Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?

Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?

As his eyes moved over the page, I rubbed the back of my neck, nerves jangling.

“I had to look up ‘maya,’ but when I found out what it means, it hit close. You know, for us. For Guardians. It felt relevant. The whole poem felt that way. Who really knows us?”

Nev pulled his full bottom lip between his teeth then slowly released it. The sight set off tingling at the base of my spine.

Fuck. That was hot.

The unbidden thought startled me and I quickly squashed it.

No. Not hot. That was Nev. Not hot. Nothing.

His continued silence made me more anxious, so I kept talking. “Maybe you don’t think so. I guess we all have our own idea of what it is to be a Guardian. I always wonder⁠—”