I perceive your insidious whispers
Behind my back.
Circling like a shiver of sharks
Around me, treacherous triangle fins flashing
And detecting my crimson blood,
Keen for the kill.

But I am not a scandal,
Rife with salacious spores
To spread throughout campus like a cancer,
A calamitous contagion,
Lethal merely to me.

Peel back my skin,
Strip my slender bones of sinuous tissue;
I am just a girl.
I am an archive of my
Accomplishments and achievements,
F***-ups and foolish faults.
All alphabetized A-Z for your prurient pleasure.

I am human.
Just like you.