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Margo can’t stand poetry.
Someone gets up in front of you with a piece of paper clutched in their hands, and recites what is simultaneously the most vague and the most painfully obvious string of fragmented sentences you’ve ever heard as if they’d just touched your soul. It’s not rapping, not preaching, but the ugly middle child standing between them. Some odd bastardization of music for people who thought they were too smart for either of the first two, but weren't brave enough to just give speeches. Speeches are coherent, specific, and can be scrutinized.
So far, sitting in the front row of the bar that her classmate Zoe had invited her to for poetry night, no one has changed her mind.
Tonight’s performances consisted of an assembly line of men (and a couple of women) in vintage sweaters ranting about their exes to the rhythm of bongo drums, or some mildly relevant social issue that none had the lexicon to really say anything in stanzas that sounded any more profound than an Instagram post.
Although, one girl had come up and recited a short poem about her late mother that Margo thought was quite sweet, and the least tortuous to sit through.
The crowd erupted in snaps again for a poet with long braided dreads and an ankh tattoo whose words she had tuned out. The host took the mic and announced the final (thank god ) participant:
“Now this next one I had to practically drag over here to get him to share his beautiful poetry with us tonight. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to one of my close friends and colleagues, Miles Morales!”
A lanky young man–Margo suspects about six feet even, given the way he’s towering over the host–awkwardly shuffles over to the center of the stage, offering the crowd a tight-lipped smile.
He’s in a plain green sweater with the sleeves hastily rolled up to his elbows and a bomber jacket tied around his waist. As soon as he’s handed the microphone, it seems to dawn on him that there’s no turning back, and his body visibly tenses.
He clearly just got here, and for once Margo doesn’t know what to expect.
Squinting beneath the bright spotlight, he clears his throat and speaks into the mic.
“Um, hi.”
A few scattered ‘hi’s from the crowd.
There’s something bright and sweet in the tone of his voice that makes him sound a little boyish, and she wonders what he could possibly have under his sleeve that warranted him getting dragged up here last minute.
He takes a deep breath.
“It’s said
That nobody
Is ever more
Than ten feet
From a spider.”
Miles began the poem carefully, like he was confessing something.
“ They be everywhere you and me are. ”
A few members of the crowd laugh, others shudder at the thought and frown.
“And even though
We see them only
When they big enough to see, or when
They move,
Like a cursor
Across the blank white
Page of a wall…”
His voice loses some of its airiness in exchange for confidence as he recites the rest of the poem, and Margo realizes that he isn’t reading off of anything.
Either he’s improvising, or he has it entirely memorized.
“Or when we trip
The web-like wire
Of a booby trap
Or when they
Fang our flesh
We should probably
Assume most
Just be right there… ”
Miles paused and looked somewhere far beyond the crowd, lifting his arm to point to the back of the room. Then he repeated:
“ Right there,
Right here, ”
He gestures toward the front row, where his eyes land directly on Margo. It’s not so close to the stage that she can tell for sure, but she thinks she sees a hint of a smile cross his lips.
“Looking at us,
Looking over them .”
Silence.
His arm falls limply to his side as his eyes frantically scan the audience, searching for some kind of response.
Then, someone begins to clap. Then another. Then another. Within moments, the entire room erupts in applause, causing a shy smile to spread across the young man’s face.
“Uh, thank you!” he says, surprised at the positive reception, before shrinking into himself again and leaving the stage the same way he came.
The host returns and takes the mic from him.
“Miles Morales, everybody!”
-
After the poetry slam, Margo insisted that Zoe take her to the sushi place across the street. It had a bar sitting off to the side, one with significantly less poets. The decorative lights hung directly above the shelf filled with glass bottles and shrouded them in cherry red.
Zoe takes a sip of her sherry and leans in.
“ Sooo , how was it?”
“It was a’ight.”
The light-skinned girl’s lips pull into a pout. “Seriously?”
“Hey, I told you poetry wasn’t my thing,” Margo pauses, then amends, “I liked the last guy, though. Breath of fuckin’ fresh air . ”
“Right? His style really caught my attention, subtle.”
“Glad you liked it.”
Zoe’s eyes widened as she glanced just beyond Margo’s shoulder.
When Margo turned towards the familiar voice and froze.
The poet in question was standing just inches away, a friendly smile gracing his features. His jacket is no longer around his waist, neatly folded over his arm like an expensive coat. He is with the excitable darker-skinned man who’d just hosted the event, and a man the shade of sandalwood standing just behind him. They’re both wearing the same type of muted cardigan as Miles, but they’ve got actual coats.
“Y’all were in the front, right?” Miles asks the both of them, though he’s only looking at Margo.
She nods wordlessly. Zoe picks up the slack.
“M-hm, you were great up there! You’ve really never shown anyone your work ‘till tonight?”
Miles snorts at the wording of the phrase. ‘ His work ’.
“I wrote that poem in high school,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Wasn’t supposed to be anything serious, but my roommate …”
He gives the dark-skinned man a dirty look.
“...swiped my journal and found it. Told me I should read it out loud somewhere.”
Margo examines Miles’ face and imagines him as a baby-faced high-schooler, sitting in the back of the classroom with a protective arm around the beat-up red composition notebook he’s writing in. He stuffs it in his bag as soon as he’s done, because he has just poured his heart out onto that page, and his crush’s name is in there. Maybe there are tiny doodles of her in the margins.
“Yo,” the sandalwood-colored man claps Miles on the shoulder. “We about to hit up Tiff’s place, you coming?”
“Yeah, in a minute,” Miles nods dismissively. “I’ll catch up with y’all.”
The two other men give each other a knowing look before brushing past him.
“Alright man, catch you later then.”
Once she finally regains the ability to speak, Margo remarks, “You were the only performance I really liked, if I’m being honest.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh yeah, this one hates poetry,” Zoe places a hand on Margo’s shoulder and laughs. “Tried to change her mind by bringing her over here, but no dice.”
Miles raised an eyebrow. “What made mine so different?”
“Hm, I dunno…” Margo’s eyes float over his form before making their way back up to his face. “Your delivery, I guess.”
Safe to say, he looks amusedly unconvinced.
“My… delivery .”
She catches herself and quickly adds, “I-I mean, it also kinda felt like everyone else was trying too hard. So.”
He tilts his head at the remark.
“Are you just saying that to flatter me?”
.“I don’t flatter people. Too close to lying.”
“That sounds like half a poem already. Maybe you should go up there next week.”
She gives him a lopsided smile.
“Only if you’re there. I need something to actually look forward to.”
His tongue darts out and passes over his lips.
“What’s your name?”
“Margo.”
Miles hums, softly repeating the name before inching his way over to the counter where he leans his hip on it.
“Pretty. Can I buy you a drink, Margo?”
She doesn’t think her name is all that pretty, but he makes it sound that way.
“Knock yourself out.”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Zoe teases as she rises from her seat. “I’m gonna go order us some sushi.”
Miles takes the stool to Margo’s left as he waits on their drinks, his long legs never needing to leave the ground to do so. He has a funny way of sitting, hands folded neatly in front of him with his back just a few degrees off from being perfectly straight. As if you needed to look distinguished at a sushi bar.
Church boy, Margo guessed. That, or his daddy’s a military man.
It’s adorable either way.
“You in school?” she asked.
“Yup. Princeton.”
Her eyes lit up.
“Oh shit, me too! I’ve never seen you on campus, though. What’s your major?”
“Physics. You?”
“Comp Sci. Been coding since I was in middle school, so…”
Margo remembers the echoing ‘click-clack’ of her keyboard as she sat in an empty computer lab for hours on end after school because she preferred it to her parents’ house.
The bartender hands Miles two glasses of white wine, and he sets the second glass in front of Margo, his warm eyes still focused on her.
She’s intrigued by how clear they are - no trace of suspicion or calculation behind them. Just the warmth.
“So, where you from? My folks are over in Brooklyn.”
“Georgia.”
Miles’ brows jump to his hairline.
“Damn. What brought you all the way up here?”
To get as far away as possible.
“Well, it’s Princeton,” she says beneath a forced laugh.
“Yeah, but you got, like, eight different HBCUs over there. How’d Princeton win you over?”
Margo breaks eye contact to stare into her drink.
“Needed a change of pace.”
When she looks up to gauge Miles’ reaction, skepticism is written all over his face. But he doesn’t push it further.
“That’s fair. Princeton’s got a cutting-edge quantum physics program that I’m aiming for. Had to beg my parents to come here,” he grins proudly, “but here I am.”
Margo is silent for a moment.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks suddenly, beckoning Miles to lean in.
“Yeah?”
Grinning, she half-whispers, “I’m actually here on a scholarship.”
He gives her an odd look.
“Why’d you say it like that? Nothin’ wrong with getting a full ride. The opposite, actually.”
“Some people might feel otherwise. You’re like, the second person I’ve told other than my parents.”
“And why me?” Miles chuckles. “My poetry was just that good?”
“I just… Hm .”
Margo leans back and takes a contemplative sip of her wine, watching him over the rim of her glass.
Why did she just tell him that?
“I guess I just sorta felt like telling you.”
Margo cautiously sets the wine back down. She figures if she’s not careful, he’ll have her full government name and social security number by the end of the night.
“Y’know, I actually get that a lot,” Miles laughs. “One time, I had this lady I was standing in line with at Target turn around and just start telling me stories about her dead son and how much she misses him. And it’s like, I’m sorry for your loss, but we’re in Target right now and I literally do not know you.”
“Wait, people just go up to you and…tell you shit?”
“Yup. There was this other time at church, too. Just as service ends and I’m about to get up and leave, this short old dude–Dominican, I think–stops me and starts telling me about his entire life. I’m talking start to finish! Apparently I reminded him of his nephew that died in the military or something.”
“Jesus.”
A crease forms between Margo’s brows. She wishes she could say she didn’t understand the old man at church or the lady at Target, but she does. No, it’s not the poetry. It’s got nothing to do with words.
It’s the way that Miles looks at people.
Like he already knows all of your secrets, but you’re not worried because they’re safe with him, so might as well tell them. It’s a merciful sort of gaze; you get the impression that he won’t judge you. You might even tell him more after his friendly ‘boy-next-door’ voice coaxes them out of you. The thought unsettles her because she had done just that.
“You ever had a girlfriend before?” She asks, all of a sudden.
Miles shrugs, “Yeah, in tenth grade, then again freshman year. Didn’t really work out.”
“Why not?”
His brows furrow gently for just a second, as if he’s still trying to figure out the answer to that.
“I…don’t know, actually. It goes well the first few months and then…”
“It fizzles out?”
“I get ghosted. Something about how they’re ‘not ready’. Understandable, I guess, but you don’t have to ghost me, y’know?”
He awkwardly examines his fingers, then his glass.
Margo feels a bit guilty for suddenly bringing up his exes when they’d just met. Would they end up the same way? She saw herself there too, being in a relationship for six months before his weird pastor’s eyes get to be a bit too much and she takes off.
“Yikes, sorry I asked.”
“It’s no problem,” a smile starts to return to his face. “Onto better things, right?”
“Right.”
“And you?”
“Huh?”
“You ever been in a relationship before?”
Margo smiles awkwardly and messes with one of her fingernails.
“Well…not exactly.”
Miles’ eyes widen.
“ Never ?”
“I mean, guys offer, and then we talk for a little bit, but then…”
“They flake out on you.”
“Pretty much.”
“Damn shame,” he says with a bit of sharpness to his voice. “Not even a first date ?”
“Nope, just ‘Read at 4:15’.”
“You know what I think it is?”
Just as he asks this, his knee brushes against her thigh. Margo isn’t sure if it’s an accident, but it distracts her nonetheless.
“What?”
“You’re too smart for them, I can tell. It scares ‘em.” But it doesn’t scare me , is the suggestion.
He smiles then, the kind that shows the whiteness of his teeth on every vowel. It’s wide enough that a dimple comes out of hiding on his left cheek, and she suddenly wants to tell him everything again. She takes another sip of wine.
“So! What’d I miss?”
Zoe finally returns from ordering their sushi at the front with an expectant grin. Miles still hasn’t taken his eyes off of her friend, while she is staring at him like a string of code, which, if you know Margo, is better than nothing.
“You didn’t miss much,” says Margo. “We were just talkin’ about our majors. School stuff.”
Miles checks his phone and lets out a low whistle.
“Well, it was lovely meeting y’all, but I gotta bounce. After getting dragged onstage, I get to be dragged over to a house party, too.”
Just as he rises from his seat, he stops and points at her.
“Before I go, though, d’you mind giving me your digits? I’d love to talk about, uh… computer science …over lunch.”
She snorts, “Who still says ‘digits’?” but hands him her phone anyway.
It couldn’t hurt to try.
“Sure.”
His eyes light up as if he wasn’t expecting her to say yes as he saves his number as ‘poetry slam guy’ in her phone, then hands it back.
“Cool,” Miles begins his walk towards the entrance backwards, holding eye contact for just a little longer before turning around. “G’night!”
“Goodnight!” the two women call out in unison as he leaves.
Margo looks to her left at the now-empty bar stool. The glass of wine Miles left on the counter is full, completely untouched.
It’s still on her mind as she's sitting in her single dorm room, re-writing her lecture notes on cyber security in a meticulous neat print that could almost pass for a font. Every few minutes her pen stops because she’s distracted by the sound of clinking glass in boxes downstairs, or because she pauses to stare at the white wall in front of her that brings to mind one of the lines of Miles’ poem.
There might be a spider that I can’t see sitting ten feet away from me right this second, she muses to herself. The thought gives her an idea, and the perfect excuse to call him without seeming too desperate.
Margo unlocks her phone and scrolls through her contacts. She smiles to herself at the contact name Miles chose. Did he think she’d forget his name that easily?
His voice soon filters through the speaker.
“Hey, you didn’t throw out my number!”
“Yup, lucky you.” she replies. “I wanted to ask you a question? About your poem the other night.”
“What about it?”
“See, I was thinking about that first line. Are we really never more than ten feet away from a spider? Like, at any given moment?”
There’s a moment of silence from Miles before he asks:
“You…called me just to ask me that?”
“What? It’s a very pressing issue! There’s probably one in the corner of my room as we speak!”
“Alright, I’ll humor you,” Miles laughs. “That’s actually a myth from the 90s. Your distance from the nearest spider really depends on where you’re at, so if you’re in a spot with hella bugs, you’re more likely to see one. You’re probably fine.”
“Now wait just a minute!” Margo gasps dramatically. “So you lied to all those poor folks in there?”
“Sure did. Played ‘em all like a fiddle.”
“Terrible.”
“So, why’d you really call? You don’t sound as concerned about spiders as you say you are, if I’m being honest.”
So much for an excuse.
“Don’t nothing get past you, huh?”
This earns a burst of laughter from Miles’ end.
“You’re a worse liar than me, I wouldn’t recommend making it a habit.”
“Ugh, fine,” Margo admits, “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“You could hear my voice in real life , you know. Offer’s still on the table, and I’m free today.”
Their second conversation, and already a lunch date? But as she’s reminded of what his voice sounds like, she quickly realizes that just the voice is not enough.
Still, she tries to sound casual and makes a non-committal noise.
“Better than being cooped up in my room all day.”
“Great! Where you wanna go?”
Margo shrugs as if he can see her on the other end.
“Wherever you wanna go.”
“Ah, the ‘wherever you wanna go’ paradox,” he chuckles. “Okay, well–lemme ask you this then. Do you like eating with or without music?”
There’s a beat of silence as she considers.
“Hm…is the music good ?”
“I’d never subject anyone to a place that plays shit music. Promise.”
“Music, then.”
“Cool, what time works for you?”
“How does two sound? I’ll catch you in front of the Engineering Library.”
“Bet. See you in an hour, then!”
-
The place Miles chose had a live band playing at the front.
A bass player, a keyboard pianist, a saxophonist, and a few background vocalists on occasion. All are propelled forward by the rapid-fire snare of the drummer. It’s jazz - the easy, conversational kind you hear in the background of 90s romantic comedies where the love interest wears nothing but dark lip liner and filled-in brows with a bit of smokey eyeshadow in the crease. This is the look that Margo has decided to go for as she sits across from Miles at a mahogany table positioned ideally by the window.
It was all she could do other than frantically adjust the braided 'fro-hawk sitting atop her head and spin around in a mist of ‘Champagne Toast’ before bolting out the door.
She doubts he can even smell it right now through the curry and garlic.
“Figured out what you want yet?” Miles asks as he looks over his menu at Margo.
“Eh, I dunno,” she replies, running her index finger down her own menu. “I’m not tryna blow half my paycheck on pasta right now.”
Miles gives her a strange look, then it clicks.
“Oh! Lunch is on me,” he laughs. “Your bank account’s safe for now.”
Her head snaps up.
“You should’ve mentioned that! I thought we were going half and half this whole time, I had my whole budget for the week planned out.”
Margo has to hold back an ugly cackle at the look of horror on Miles’ face right after she says this.
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.”
With this new information in mind, she orders a bowl of chicken alfredo with a glass of lemonade that she sips on as the band seamlessly transitions into a cover of Solange’s ‘Cranes in the Sky’.
“So, Margo ,” Miles rests his chin on his knuckles and squints his eyes comically.
“If that is your real name.”
Margo giggles, and plays along.
“It’s not, it’s my alter-ego for when I go on top-secret missions.”
“Is it short for something? Or just Margo?”
“Hm,” she puts on an affected, ‘action movie’ voice, “If I tell you, I might have to kill you.”
“It’s worse ways to die out there.”
Margo looks around her as if to make sure no one’s listening, then leans in.
“It’s short for Marguerite.”
Miles snaps his fingers.
“I knew it!”
“What? You think I look like a Marguerite? Seriously?”
“No, but you got a lil’ country twang in your voice. Ain’t no way in hell Margo wasn’t short for something.”
“Man, alright,” she laughed.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” he winked, “I like ‘em country.”
“Boy, don’t give me that! You look like you’d pass out at the sight of a jar of pig’s feet.”
“ Hey now , I got family in South Carolina. I used to go down there and see about ten of those every summer.”
“Fine, but you were still raised a Northerner. I could hear the Brooklyn from a mile away.”
Miles removed his hand from under his chin to clutch his chest.
“Ugh, I feel like I’m caught between two worlds!”
The reference to one of the more choice lines from the poetry slam makes Margo snort and let out a loud guffaw, which she quickly muffles with the palm of her hand.
“Why would you remind me of that!”
Miles is soon infected by the fit of laughter and has to put all his strength into not doubling over at the table and drawing attention.
“This nigga said,” he wheezed, “ ‘I keep doing the Achy Breaky to Suavemente!’ “
“I thought I was the only one who thought that shit sucked,” Margo sighed as she wiped a tear from her eye. “But I didn’t wanna be mean ‘cuz I’m not like, half Puerto Rican, or anything like that.”
“Well I am, and that whole poem felt like a microaggression. And I knew that guy!” He starts gesturing wildly with his hands at the outrage, which Margo finds hilarious.
“He's like, one-eighth Boricua. His last name is fuckin’ Schwartz !” Miles scoffs, “He don’t know shit about no damn ‘Suavemente’. Bet he looked it up.”
“You should write your own poem, then. ‘Take up space’, as they say.”
“Hell no,” he said. “I left that behind in high school. The other night was an exception, remember?”
“Look, I’m not one to encourage more people to become poets, but you never know. Something might inspire you.”
Miles calms down and gives her a meaningful look.
“Maybe.”
The rest of the conversation saw Miles slyly gathering intel through bites of roasted chicken. He’d quickly learned from their meeting at the bar that his line of questioning with Margo ought to be less direct. He even hit her with the ‘what’s your sign’ question, though Biggie would’ve advised against it. He didn’t actually care for astrology, but Margo wasted no time in proclaiming that she couldn’t stand Scorpios because they were ‘too nosy’.
Miles’ only error was asking if she’d ever dated–correction– spoken to one, and her eyes hardened with suspicion again. He quickly elected to change the subject.
“Okay, totally random question, but humor me. How do you like your eggs?”
Margo blinks twice.
“What?”
“You heard me. You can tell a lot about a person by what kinda eggs they like, true shit.”
“Alright, fine. I like ‘em fried, with the crispy edges. What that say about me?”
“I dunno, but when I find out it’ll all make sense.”
Margo laughs.
“Okay, well, how do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled, fluffy,” A childish grin spread across Miles’ lips. “And seasoned with Adobo to make ‘em all orange.”
“Never had ‘em like that before.”
“Maybe I could make some for you sometime, if you’d let me.”
“Maybe.”
She remembers his promise a month later when she wakes up to the aroma of the seasoning and hears the pop of frying oil, letting out a sigh of relief at the realization that Miles is still there.
His back is facing her when she enters the kitchen, the morning light illuminating a tattoo she had never seen before.
It’s a spider with sprawling legs that cascade all the way down the expanse of skin, the movement of his shoulder blades bringing them partially to life. She hadn’t noticed it in the dark, and he was not one to walk around in anything revealing enough for it to have ever seen daylight. It’s faded, which means he’s likely had it for years.
He’s only twenty-one , she thinks. Did he get it in high school?
Amusement creeps onto Margo’s face at the image of Miles sneaking around the house, darting in and out of the bathroom to clean it without his hawk-eyed mother or straight-edged father taking notice. Picturing this, it’s suddenly much easier to believe that their son would have to beg and plead for them to send him a measly forty-six miles away for school, even for an Ivy League.
Miles doesn’t turn around yet, but Margo catches the way he stops, tilting his head playfully and placing a hand on his hip.
“
Man
, I can’t believe I’mma have to eat this whole thing of scrambled eggs all by myself,
with
the ones I just fried! How sad.”
“You’re not very funny,” Margo says with a smile, pulling out a chair from beneath the dining table.
He switches the stove off, then does a dramatic spin to face her with fake surprise on his face.
“Oh! Where’d you come from? I didn’t see you there.”
He turns back around to grab two plates–ceramic ones, not the stack of styrofoam ones–from one of the cupboards to serve the eggs in, starting with fried.
Margo watches him silently. The tiny, squint-or-you-might-miss-it gold chain around his neck catches the light as he moves, and she remembers feeling the cold metal brush across her lips.
“The fried ones, are they–”
“Crispy at the edges?” he finishes, with a smile in his voice. “Yes ma’am!”
“You could really be a detective, can’t get nothing past you.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“See?”
The two burst into laughter, and the ink on Miles’ back does also. His poem was accurate, in a way. For the past five weeks, Margo has been no more than ten feet away from a spider.
They have a brief and quiet breakfast, wherein Margo finally asks to try the scrambled eggs and is delighted by the burst of flavor added by the Adobo. They aren’t too dry or too soggy the way they tend to be in restaurants - just fluffy, as promised. She thinks it might be time to finally start taking Miles at his word as she watches his back again while he’s washing dishes.
Once he is fully dressed and about to leave, Miles stops suddenly, as if he’s forgotten something. He reaches into the left pocket of his jacket and pulls out a neatly-folded sheet of paper, nervously running his other hand through the short dreads sitting atop his head.
“Before I leave, I, uh…I took your advice and wrote a lil’ something.”
He hands it to Margo, who takes it gingerly.
“Well, good for you.”
“It’s been a while, so it’s kinda rough, but hopefully the sentiment is there.”
Miles plants a quick kiss on her cheek, and she smiles easily for once as opposed to the usual raised eyebrow.
“I’ll be sure to let you know if it is.”
Some time after he leaves, she finally sits down to read it while sipping on a cup of tea, because coffee wreaks havoc on her nerves. His handwriting is strange, overly graphic as if it’s the title card of a cartoon, but she reads it.
I know you don't like poetry
but you said you liked mine,
and the way you sip your wine
has set my pen to paper,
so I hope
you'll make another exception.
You've already claimed
half of my sketchbook
because I just can't get your eyes right.
I always make ‘em too soft,
or too round.
They don't pierce through me,
like they did when
you stared at me over your glass,
Eyes narrowed.
When you search my face
and pick me apart,
I'd like to know what it is
you're always searching for.