Issue 22

Marream Krollos

Oh, yeah, I would say he was good. He was really good, it’s a shame what happened.

I guess it was like, because of how he wants to know the details of your body, or how he wanted to know all kinds of shit about you. How you smell and how you taste, what you look like naked in different places in the room. He’s just sensual. He was just sensual, I guess. I remember he liked it when I tried to touch him everywhere, all over, he liked that. When I asked him what he wanted, he would say this feels good, you touching me like that. You know, like running your hands up and down his back and chest and face. It’s good. It’s good when somebody wants to feel your hands on them like that. It’s like you’re giving a massage, but to a baby or something. He touched you like your body is something good, something he wants to touch, like a kid who has never had sex before or something, like sex is something exciting still, something fun to do that if you get to do at all, you are lucky, like the expression to get lucky still has a meaning. He fucks, fucked you as if he wants you to be happy, even if he doesn’t love you, and so you feel like maybe you could have loved him.

❈

He was a selfish lover, but in a good way. He touched me when he wanted to, and where he wanted to, and because he wanted to touch me. He only touched me because he wanted to touch me, in the way he wanted to touch me. He touches you, he touched you, I mean, I’m sorry. Let me try again.

So, when you felt his touch, you could be sure that this is how he wanted to touch you. Your body is pleasure for him, he is not thinking about you. If he kisses your breasts then you know he really wants to kiss them, not because he thinks you want your breasts kissed. That is why he is kissing your breasts because he wants to kiss them. He wants to touch, he doesn’t care what you want. It sounds bad, but it made me feel beautiful. I start thinking he wants to kiss me so much, he wants to, he wants me. Of course, if you didn’t want him back at all it would not feel right. But he was hot, and pretty nice, so I did. He is kissing you because he wants to kiss. That may not be important to some people, or not impressive or anything, but this makes me feel beautiful. He made people feel beautiful. The more generous, tender lovers, you know, they touch you where they think you want them to touch you. I know some people are into that, but it makes me sick. Seriously, it makes me ill. It’s nice and all, to be considerate, because they want to make you feel good, but when a man touches your body just because he wants to, wherever he wants to … I can’t even begin to explain how it feels. To be touched because you’re just wanted, by somebody who wants to touch you, for himself.

All right, just try and imagine the difference. In one instance somebody is sucking on, or licking, or squeezing your breasts because they think it would feel good to you, you would feel good if they did this or that. But this other person is just dying to suck and lick and squeeze parts of you. Dying to do it. Can you see the difference? Anyway, I just felt, I guess, pretty. I felt pretty. It would have been nice if a man that was with me, and treated me well otherwise too, touched me like that.

❈

I don’t know, I was fucked up. I used to love fucking like that though. Bodies became colors and shapes that I couldn’t find anywhere else when I was that fucked up. He was like, just a being. He was a being, I didn’t know, but wanted to understand. I would start thinking while looking at these men that their skin would be the right temperature to touch, while I look at them, and I feel that, I feel that, whether it’s too cold or too hot in the room they would be what is just right. And all the bumps on his skin became just bumps, not something bad or good, but something else to want to touch. There was a pale light around him that couldn’t be described, the way people that have died briefly and come back can’t describe the light they see calling them closer, asking them if they really want to stay. Limbs become silky twine, I want to tie myself up with, want to wrap around me, and I feel like, I feel like I could move through a person. I feel like we could move through each other like streams of syrupy light. You can feel someone’s spirit, you know, when you fuck them, the spirit that animates their body, and makes them so beautiful. And then when that beautiful body animates an instrument … and makes music … the instruments were animated by his spirit and I touched it. Maybe that’s why afterwards I always knew when he was the one playing, even when I wasn’t looking.

❈

I loved it when he took those pictures. I just loved it. Other women have rolls while sitting down, it’s obvious when you look at bigger women even with clothes on. I don’t at all, most women do though, even thinner ones like me. He noticed that I didn’t, even though most women he’s seen sitting down next-to-naked do. He said I could have been a model. He said I’m the only woman he’d seen bend without any extra skin showing. I could have been a model, but I just didn’t want to deal with all that shit they have to go through, the traveling and shit. I like it here, I didn’t want to go anywhere. Anyway, when he took pictures of me, I felt like he did it so that he could remember that he had been with a girl, a girl who looks like me. He was nice. I’m sorry about what happened.

I, also, really loved how he stopped. If you weren’t kissing him back or something like that, he would stop, and look at you. You know, to see what’s wrong. Like you were there with him, like you were doing something together.

❈

Well, we were there at the same time once. She was on her period. I knew from the sounds and smells when we were in the bathroom, before we went in. He is one of those guys who didn’t mind that stuff though. I don’t mind fooling around when I’m at the end of mine, she probably wasn’t even towards the end, not from the smell, she was disgusting. He wrote a song about fucking a woman on her period, maybe she thought it was about her. And in an interview he said that he thinks people shouldn’t be ashamed of stuff like that, because it’s natural. She was so disgusting though. I couldn’t believe he fucked her like that, but I liked that about him. You could smell the shit and blood when she walked out. She shat before she fucked him. I hoped he didn’t think the smell was coming from me if he could smell anything on her. He’s the kind of guy who would eat you out while you’re on your period though. I wouldn’t have let him. She would have though, she most likely did. I guess it was nice of him to fuck her, to not be grossed out by her, but she was disgusting.

❈

A poem a girl wrote with the intention of showing him if they were ever to meet again:

He was high on top of her

He put his hands on her face

The way a mother would touch her child

To give medicine or food

To the mouth of a sick child

And she was sick for it

From not having it

In her mouth

And so he gave it to her out of

Generosity

My body is your body he said

What do you need?

Do you need this?

To keep living like a child who needs to suckle on a breast?

Take me in your mouth

❈

He asked me why I didn’t dance in front of him earlier. I couldn’t believe he noticed that I hadn’t danced, that I was the only one. I hate how I move to music I told him. I look like I’m a muttering insane person when I’m drunk and singing and dancing at the same time. Those other girls didn’t look much better he told me. I don’t even do it when I am all alone, dance. I catch myself moving to music and stop suddenly sometimes because I look like I’m just jerking my body around. I like that he asked though, and the way he asked, as if that’s what he would have preferred to see, me. I can’t believe he noticed me at all. I was glad I didn’t dance. Especially considering the way he looked at me afterwards.

❈

He was one of those men, you know? The kind who know you should treat women well, if you want them to trust you, if only so they get off when fucking you. But he also knew that if they began to trust you, they would really trust you, depend on you. That’s not what he wanted, I don’t think. I think, that’s not what he wanted. He just wanted to be in love while fucking. I understand. When I was in the sixth grade I took money from my mom to buy this girl six different presents. She had mentioned to me that her mom gave her decent presents for Christmas, but only one or two. And she had always wished for many things to open, even if they weren’t all great, because that’s her favorite part, opening the presents. So, I went out and bought six different kind of shitty things. But the thing is, I didn’t even know her well. And she wasn’t really my friend, she didn’t really like me. She was popular. But I wanted to feel love. So, I wanted to act it out. I used to not know what was wrong with wanting that.

❈

They are all trying to fit into this one mold, those girls. They think they’re so radically different, when they are only going from one kind of societal more to another. They’re part of this subculture that they think is so wild and crazy, but really it has all the same rules as any other bullshit culture or subculture anybody could belong to. I guess that’s what made me different in his eyes.

I guess it was just how he was too.

But he made you trust his body. He made your body trust his. He touched you with both his hands in the most unexpected places at exactly the right time. I don’t think anybody had ever had one had behind my knees and one on my lower back before. Or that’s how I would describe it, at least. I think that’s how it should be when it’s good. You should be touched in places you forgot existed, right when you most need to be.

He said something to me … He said I can’t believe nobody else has ever done this to you. This part of your body, it just opens up and responds like a flower blooming for me. I know it sounds corny now …

❈

I don’t know, really know, if he was good in bed or not. I don’t know what I’d say about that really. I’ll tell you this though, he was shockingly generous in bed for somebody who was so used to all those women doing whatever he wanted. He was nice enough about it. He touched my ears a lot, said they were strange and beautiful. I guess all body parts are in a way. If you keep looking at an eye, or a nose long enough, you see how strange it really is. He was eccentric like that, I suppose. He liked experimenting with body parts. He would just stare at your ears or nose and try to understand it with kisses. You know, like when you get to see an animal up close, you’ve never even heard of before. I can’t remember not knowing what a deer looks like, but this one day with my brother we had one in the back of his truck and I kept staring at its nose and ears and eyes. I had never really seen one up close before. That’s how he looked at me, like an animal he had never really seen up close before it was still in the back of his truck.

❈

I know this sounds skanky, but I loved that he didn’t want me to lie there until he put on a condom. I told him I wouldn’t get pregnant, and why, and he believed me. It felt like I was his girlfriend or something. Some of these assholes … just the way they put that condom on, makes you feel like you’re a whore. It’s as if they want to strap one on to their fucking tongues, or their whole face and body while they’re at it, just so they don’t get you on them. I know most people don’t understand how it would feel, how it could make you feel like shit, if a man wears a condom. Then he does, because we think it’s responsible and shit … I don’t get it. But if he thinks you are a whore who is trying to get herself pregnant, and you’re supposed to feel good about that … And why would it be the most horrible thing in the fucking world anyway, for me to be pregnant, to get me pregnant, but you’re supposed to be all glad and shit that they’re so responsible. They can’t forget about how dirty you are for one fucking minute even while your pussy is all out there and he’s hard, and I’m supposed to be like oh, thank you, when all he’s thinking about is how horrible it would be …

❈

I don’t know, honestly. I get nervous. I get so wrapped up in faking the orgasm, right, I can’t pay attention to anything else.

I know they like it that way. It’s what they want.

I’m just thinking about that other stuff, you know, how to enjoy yourself in front of a man who has had a lot of women enjoying themselves for him. It isn’t easy. And it’s important that you do it with guys who have …

Well, first I have to concentrate on how I’m going to move because when the time comes I start to contract and release like it’s involuntary, so I have to get into a rhythm. Then once the squeeze and release is over with, you have to arch your back and look like you’re tensing but out of control at the same time, you know, tense the muscles of your lower body and flail a little using your hands and feet, but not too much. Sometimes I’ll actually tell them that I can’t have them inside me anymore, right after, you know, because it hurts for a while and I’m tender, or sensitive, since I came so hard. Shit like that. It makes them crazy, makes them want to get right back in there. They will pull out for a while if it’s for that reason though, you know, because they feel so good about themselves, they think they’ve just done you two favors now. They’ve been so giving and all.

❈

He reminded me how emotional most men are. I don’t know why, but the most emotional men I have met are the ones who act the most macho. He didn’t though. He didn’t really act that macho. He was not very emotional maybe, but he made me think about that. He wasn’t very emotional, I don’t think.

Actually, my best memory of that night was of those two people who went up in front of the stage to dance. Two people holding each other’s hands just pranced in front of the stage. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have people repeating everything you say like that. They’d memorized his life, but only what he wanted them to memorize of it. I can’t imagine what it would be like for every one of your sorrows to just turn into that, something somebody wants to memorize. It must be better than having real friends. Under those lights everything bad that had ever happened to him could become something good for someone else. He just stood there prostrate, like a god lending people their prayers I thought. And those compliments he got afterwards, the looks on people’s faces. It must feel like first sex does, real sex, somebody seeing you, wanting you, having you, until you get used to it. It must feel like the very first time anybody tells you that you could do and be anything, until you stop believing them …

❈

It’s true, I can. I can. I just can.

Well, it’s because I think all men are good in bed. You just have to appreciate the different things they do. Nobody thinks about how unfair it is that women get to be considered good in bed so easily. We just have to moan and hold on while they do all the real work, if you really think about it. They think a woman is good in bed if she just enjoys it. You just have to think about what they’re doing while they’re doing it, really concentrate. Like, he’s touching my shoulder, he’s kissing my shoulder, oh my god, he’s kissing my shoulder. You say it, and feel it, to yourself, like you would if you were dreaming about it, or just imagining it. You just focus on everything and repeat it in your head until it makes you crazy. You have to really want it though. You have to really want a man’s hands on you to get that excited when he touches you. You have to want to be touched because the touch itself is what you want, you know what I mean?

❈

He just couldn’t keep his hands off me. He made me feel hot. Like a girl who looks like someone a guy would fall in love with in a movie.

I am beautiful in the mirror sometimes, when I am not comparing myself to anyone, I can feel beautiful. That’s how he made me feel, like he wasn’t comparing me to anyone. And I loved how he said my name, how he pronounced it. He was so strange too, so comfortable with himself. He kept rubbing at his pierced ears and smelling his fingers. He said he loved that smell. You know, bellybuttons and ears and cunts and stuff … that open wound smell he called it. He loved it.

You could tell that if you were his girl he would kill for you too. If you were his he would be really loyal. If he ever wanted to be that to somebody. He made me feel like I had a man while I was with him. The way he moved his large hands all over me, the spread of his legs, and his flat-board chest against a chair, the back of his neck … It was all mine while I was with him. He made me feel like I could walk right up to him and kiss him, if I wanted to, for that night.

❈

I don’t wear underwear. It turned him on. That’s why my favorite part is when they slowly take my pants off. That’s why I wear tight jeans, because then they have to do it slowly. I love how the fabric of the pants grazes against my skin, not too roughly, not too lightly. And I love watching them try so hard to get them off. Some men know what to do with their hands. But even if they don’t, I think about things I can do, and just focus. I can kiss his top lip. I can kiss his bottom lip. I can bite his lips. I can suck on his lips. I can kiss his face. I can kiss his penis. I can kiss all over his body. Oh, my god, I can kiss him if I want. Oh, my god. Like that. You just repeat it to yourself in your head to get turned on. It really works. It just goes faster in real life, and slower in my head. But you keep it going like a chant.

❈

Sometimes I would tell him to stop while he was inside me. I do this with men, just to see what they would do, what they will do, if they’re decent guys or not. If they keep going you have guilt-free sex, I guess, you could tell yourself you didn’t even want it. If they stop, then you’re with a good guy, and you can enjoy it more because he’s nice enough. So, it’s not that bad what you’re doing, that you’re doing it with him.

❈

I just did it because they said I wouldn’t do it. He was not really my type.

It was all right.

They said I wouldn’t do it. I did it.

The last time they said that to me was with that waiter. They gave me shit about how I would never do it, so I did it. They said I was all talk. I took him out back by the trash and blew him.

It wasn’t really my fault.

I almost wanted to thank him afterwards. Not every guy would let you do that. We make jokes about how they all would, but it is not true really. Some of them reject you.

I want to see any one of them do something like that, they said I wouldn’t do it.

❈

It usually creeps me out if a guy touches me at a bar. It feels as if a ghost is passing right through my body. The way it would send bad chills up your spine, and curdle up and down your throat and chest.

See, once you just lie down and wait … If it doesn’t hurt, then what’s the problem is the other thing.

He said I took it like a trooper.

He thought I had thick lips. I don’t know if it’s because he knew I was supposed to or if he really saw that on my face.

I wasn’t really in the mood that night, with the waiter. That’s why anyway. That’s why. As we were walking in some homeless guy or something had said something about my ass. I hate it when they do shit like that. I think he said I like those tight pants, baby. I was grossed out, but nobody else, none of them, cared that he said it. The waiter was kind of cute though. Not in the face, but there was something about him. The way he leaned against things. He leaned a certain way against the bar and touched his waitress friends a certain way. Like they were all friends, not just friendly. He could put his hands around their waists, but it didn’t mean anything. It was just protective or friendly. Like, he would say something to some guy who said something about your ass while you were walking down the street, if he had heard it.

The problem with them is that they think they know people when they really don’t.

They pay attention to what guys do, then make a big deal out of it when it turns out to be true. Or not true.

He went and got me some water when I said I was thirsty at night after he fucked me. But so fucking what. That doesn’t mean anything about a person. It’s like that guy who said I like those tight pants, baby. He wasn’t even talking to me. He was just talking. You can’t take that shit personally. The good and the bad things people say or do most of the time, it isn’t even about you.

When I was thinking about trying to get the waiter to leave with me I thought of picking up my drink and walking in front of the aquarium or fishtank thing and leaning in just like he did it, swaying there with my drink. Just swaying in front of the anemones and the orange fish with the yellow fins and the blue tail. That wouldn’t get him to like me, or think I’m beautiful, but it would show him that I was drunk enough to do that. Then if I said something about needing someone to help me in a taxi, he would know what could happen. But then I saw all those women at the restaurant with their ugly, bald husbands. I knew they didn’t love their ugly, bald husbands even if they don’t know it. They stay with them because they’re paying for the meal. I couldn’t imagine getting in bed with one of them, those husbands. It grossed me out. They probably forced themselves to touch them at night because they want to have their stupid houses, and all their stupid shit.

❈

Erections are amazing. It’s like you can think to yourself, I did that, that’s all for me.

I am not lying ever. Maybe I am just exaggerating about it all sometimes, but it’s true.

I scream that loud to turn myself on too, not just them. I just know what to do to get myself off. Hearing how much I love it makes me love it more, and it makes them love it. It’s like anything you do, you have to make the most of it. You just have to appreciate their bodies and the fact that they’re touching you. You have to make it important. Like touching somebody’s feet and thinking what would they do without their feet, even though that sounds a little creepy, it works. What if they didn’t have these hands? What would they do without all this skin?

❈

I think the way a man plays the guitar shows a lot about how he will make love to you. How he stands holding the guitar, too, that shows a lot about how he will fuck you. How he holds a guitar is important. How they move to their own music. How they all get near each other and then step back, and get near each other again while they’re playing. How they play with each other and tease each other on stage. How they look into each other’s eyes while they’re playing, hold each other’s gaze, before they turn away slowly. The way a man plays the guitar with other men will tell you a lot about how he is in bed.

❈

I always tell them I’m ugly. I always start with that, to defend myself, I say it first, before they think it. I didn’t with him. I didn’t feel like I had to say it. I don’t know why. Why did she do that to him?

❈

Any man can be great in bed if he follows a few simple steps. I think paying attention to a few things would do in ten minutes what hours of stamina or inches or girth could achieve.

First you have to kiss foreheads.

Touching faces gently then is very effective, touching or cupping.

Repeating one movement with different levels of pressure over and over again, on any body part.

Touch hands, especially hands, playing with their hands.

Kissing a woman’s body everywhere, all of it, without losing focus, using different amounts of pressure. I only have one friend who doesn’t like that, she says it tickles her.

Necks are good places to focus. Backs too, all over the back, if the pressure is right, you maybe want lighter pressure there.

Asking things, anything, every once in a while.

Repeating one simple movement, in different ways, until you think you can’t anymore, before you move on.

❈

He’s like men you’d want to meet on vacation, at exotic locations. He was like that.

You won’t believe it, but he actually let me do his hair. It’s not just that we showered together, but he let me wash his hair for him, the way I would do it for myself, and he didn’t redo it or anything.

He’s like those creepy assholes or those perverts who scare you a little when they come on to you at bars, but without being too scary. I guess that’s what fame does to you, makes you brave, but not creepy anymore maybe.

❈

You can tell everything about how a man makes love by watching him eat. Especially sweets, you could tell the most from watching him eat sweets. Think of something like a berry tart with chocolate-covered crust, custard, whipped cream, a garnish on top. The way a man will separate the chocolate crust from the custard and berries, for example. If he likes to eat different parts of something, which comes all put together, separately, that’s very good. Or eat them together, but in different kinds of bites, that’s a really good sign too. Eating everything all together in random bites quickly is not so good. But if he only eats the raspberry sauce with the cream, then the cream with the pieces of chocolate, then the raspberry sauce with the chocolate … I never really got to see him eat though. He made love like he separated parts of pastries, not like he put scoops of different colors of anything in his mouth without thinking.

❈

I do really stupid things in front of guys, all the time, if I’m drunk, so I tried not to, but it helps me, the alcohol, because I’m not trying to judge them or anything like that, because if I’m not relaxed, then I get upset that I’m there. You have to pretend to be drinking without drinking sometimes too though. I guess because they will keep giving you drinks too. How else are you supposed to enjoy the moment without being sober, or drunk. And you can’t even have memories of something so good afterwards. It’s strange.

❈

I showed him my poems. He didn’t actually read all of them, but he at least took a look at them. That’s more than most people would do.

My roommate brought back this asshole once. He opened one of my books and said something like oh, did you need to write down these vocabulary words on the side. I said they weren’t vocabulary words, I was focusing on a word, and he gave me this look. He was just some guy who she had just blown. Some guy who just got a blowjob and thinks he’s the shit. He was nothing like that. He looked at you when he came. He looked at you in this way that made you feel like you were sharing the happiest moment of his life together.

❈

I wake up in the middle of the night all of the time. Thank God I can see the streetlights from my window. They’re like nightlights. My dad says it saves so much money on electricity. Because I can’t even sleep with a nightlight, sometimes I need real lights. I need a lot of light. In this room while I’m falling asleep I can see about six big orange lights outside my window. I wake up terrified if I can’t see at night. I wake up and my heart is beating out of my chest, out of control. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m actually scared, or if I just think I’m scared, because my heart is beating so fast. It’s a really weird feeling when your heart beats that fast. I imagine that someone I can’t see is in the room with me. It’s really weird, but I have to actually imagine what it would be like if there was a man there and he put his palm on my mouth, throat, just to calm myself down. It actually soothes me to think, okay, this is what it would be like, it’s fine then if there really is a man here and he really is going to do that anyway, then what would it feel like. It’s like when I’m with somebody, I don’t know if I’m nervous or if it’s just because my heart is beating fast because I’m having sex. I’ve never asked anybody about it.

I remembered yesterday he said something about my father being worried. My father is never worried.

I was actually feeling things. My heart was beating really fast. He was nice about it. He kissed me and stuff. He really liked that I was a virgin, I told him I was, and he liked it. When I told him he made this face, like fake worried or sad surprise. I knew when to tell him too.

If something will feel bad, you just have to expect it and imagine it already, because that’s the scary part is wondering what it would feel like. If you expect that it will happen, it just happens, like eating food you don’t like the taste of, like medicine you have to take.

He would kiss you. If you woke up, walked around naked, went to the bathroom, scrubbed the toilet, then made a cup of coffee, and sat down naked on a chair. He would come over to you and kiss your naked body as you sat on that chair. You could imagine him doing something like that.

I don’t do it, usually, I hate that smell of their penises, because it smells like when I’m at the end of my period. He didn’t smell too bad though. Not really. At least not that one time I was with him.

I imagine him really being my first sometimes. I think he would have been good at that, being someone’s first. He would like having to pretend to be gentle.

❈

It’s like this, I just think scream and you will feel it. Oh, this feels so good, so good, I want to scream, scream, and scream and you will feel it. I feel it. I feel it, scream more, scream. I feel it, his hands are on me, his hands are on me, what are his hands doing, where are his hands, oh god, this feels so good, scream, and you will feel more, just like that, scream.

I don’t really feel as much when they’re just inside me though, but I do feel them on my body, the pressure, I mostly just need hands. He was actually pretty good because his hands felt good on my nipples and ass. He had the perfect amount of pressure. Sometimes it just kind of hurts or feels ticklish, but it still feels good because they’re touching me.

❈

If I had to describe it, I would say that it’s because of … It’s because of how … Okay, he was like a wolf or something. I love wolves. Or a bear. He was almost growling like an animal on top of me, with his chest, his eyes. But not like a clumsy bear. He was like a vampire, not afraid to take in some blood, the kind of guy who wouldn’t care if you were on your period. I like men that are comfortable with blood, because I bleed, we all do, so why wouldn’t I?

❈

They say real love is wanting to make someone happy. I wanted to make him happy. I felt it. I want to be what makes him happy. When you really love someone, you don’t think about yourself or what could happen to you, you think about them and what they want. You get pleasure out of wanting them to feel good. That’s how I felt about him. That’s what I wanted to be, the thing that made him happy.

❈

He was into being creative, but not into really weird shit or anything. He was creative in a human way, or humane or humanist, or something. It was like playful or sweet or something.

Basically, he fucked you like he loved you. You know the way people fuck when they first fall in love, when they are first getting to know each other’s bodies. Most men look at you like they’ve seen it all before. He wanted us to get to know each other’s bodies, but it’s loving too, or caring, at least.

Now that I’ve been with him I want to be with a bartender too. I made up a list after him. I have on the list construction worker, tattoo artist, foreigner, and maybe a teacher. But it would have to be a professor or something, not like an elementary school teacher or anything like that. Maybe another type of musician, maybe a classical musician or a ballet dancer, or something.

❈

How could they not be angry and violent with us sometimes when they can’t even pretend to enjoy sex, and still be good in bed, and they know we can? And they have to do so much to be considered good in bed. Penis size is a factor and how long they will last and how they touch you and everything like that, it’s a lot of pressure. And we talk about it afterwards, and they know you will talk about it, and it degrades them.

And they have to go to war and die too, when we don’t.

If you just love them while you’re with them, you will come when you’re with them.

❈

A young girl wrote this right after she spent the night with him:

The movement of his Adam’s apple

No matter how fast he’s speaking his hands

Which spread

The legs stretched

One hand fisted rests on one thigh

A flat chest spreads out flat against the back of a chair

As strong and sturdy as I bet you would be if you were his and you walked and reached up and kissed him he would try and figure out what you were doing first then he would try and kiss you back even if he could only reach the edges of your mouth

His hands are gorilla shaped hands carrying a bag or putting them on your face.

And that voice

If the core of the earth had a sound it could make his voice is colored brown mostly some green a hint of blue

Mostly red like the molten metal core of the earth

❈

I hate it when they think you want to make out with other girls. It’s disgusting. He didn’t seem into that shit at least. And you have to pretend to like it so much with some of them. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s like drinking slime when you’re kissing a face that’s that soft. That last girl, her mouth was so soft and her face was so soft I felt like I was trying to make out with a wet marshmallow or something. Her breath stank and she didn’t move her tongue right. I have been with guys who had bad breath too, and couldn’t kiss, but it just wasn’t the same because their faces were firmer, their skin rougher, it didn’t feel like trying to kiss a baby … Anyway, he was pretty cool about not being too into it.

He wasn’t too honest where it would hurt your feelings, but he wasn’t like weak or ashamed either. Like I had a guy once tell me that he wouldn’t eat me out anymore because I taste like battery acid. That kind of shit, where they think they’re cool because they’re honest or something. He said he was telling me for my own good, so I get it checked out.

Once I asked a guy to go down on me while I was lying spread eagle on his bed naked, I had just blown him, and he just looked at me and said nah, let’s save something to do in case we see each other again, like it was the right time to be a fucking smartass. But that just wasn’t the time to be funny, you know? He wasn’t like that. It’s hard to explain, but he was nice to you, just because you were with him or something. You were his, for a while.

When a woman is nice to me I am much less likely to think she is ugly than when she is mean to me. I can see how her face can be kind of pretty, if she is nice. That’s how it was with him. He was nice, so you thought he was good looking, but I can’t say he was a classic beauty or anything. He had all that bumpy shit on his skin.

He was a good kisser. It’s like coloring. He uses all of his crayons when he kisses, so the picture is very colorful. But he also stays in the lines. I think I heard that in a movie or something. Anyway, not sloppy but also not boring.

My voice would start getting on his nerves probably if we knew each other for too long. I get told that a lot, that my voice gets on people’s nerves. Then my face would, then my whole body. I think it would be my voice first though, because I can sometimes hear my own voice and it annoys me too. I think my face next because that is where I most look like just myself. My body would be last, because that is where I look most like any other woman.

❈

It might have been good. It might have been, but I smelled his shit, not while I was sucking him off or anything, but while I was sucking his balls, and I thought I was going to puke. I was doing this thing with my fingers in his ass and when I moved my hands later towards his chest I could smell it. It was fucking shocking. I don’t know why, because I know he shits, but I just kept thinking he didn’t wash. He rich and famous and doesn’t fucking wash or anything. I just don’t do that finger ball-sucking thing with anyone anymore now.

❈

It is as if they are all making love to each other up there.

The way they make room for each other contracting and expanding together.

First one of them moves like this, then the other one allows them to move like that, closer.

They have to laugh and forgive each other, they are just like lovers up there on that stage.

❈

I guess those girls in Afghanistan we learned about in class fall in love and do the same things that people like us who know about sex do. But maybe they do them without knowing that they’re supposed to be doing these things. They must just know what feels good, everybody does, or can know that. So maybe they actually want come on their faces, or stuff like that, without knowing you have to ask for it or that’s something that makes people feel good and they want to do. And they like how penises feel and stuff, just naturally on their own, without knowing they’re supposed to like it.

❈

To be honest, I liked fantasizing about him more than I did actually being with him.

My fantasies are always better though, because when I touch my breasts, when I’m masturbating, I imagine what he’s thinking about my breasts, as well as feel what it’s like to have my nipples hard and my skin tighten, because I’m touching my breasts, at the same time. So, it’s as if I feel what he’s feeling and what I am feeling at the same time. Well, what I imagine him to be feeling, and what I am actually feeling because of what I think he is feeling. It’s just extra intense. I feel the fabric of my shirt brushing off my skin, and I feel what he’s thinking about me, and what I am thinking about him, and what he is thinking all at the same time. It’s just better, more intense, double the sensation.

❈

We learned in class that six-hundred thousand families are homeless in this country right now. I thought this would be a great image for a poem. There is the sun above the earth and the moon, and the darkness everywhere. Then you just zoom in closer and closer until you get to a little starving girl. Because that is how it is, the world is big, but there are small details we forget about.

I want to write something about him, but it would have to be like him. It would have to be strong and wild at the same time, like he is. Like when you look at a painting and it’s crazy with all the colors and shapes, but you know it must have taken a lot of thought and a lot of time to make, because a famous artist made it.

❈

This retarded guy I work with, like literally retarded, thinks I could be into him because I was a little nice to him once … These guys don’t understand social norms either, but they’re not literally retarded. At least the normal ones know when you are out of their league. I get really insulted when I think about it still, but then I feel bad for him thinking to himself that he could be with somebody normal-looking, much less somebody like me. Even if he wasn’t like that, I wouldn’t do it because of what he looks like. Nobody could like him except another retarded person though. It’s like those dwarfs who find other dwarfs and those dwarf conventions. I guess a lot of normal ugly people don’t know they’re ugly either though.

He knew I was beautiful. He did this thing. He used my body like it was a guitar. He came up from behind and played my stomach and arms, while he was singing on the skin of my neck.

❈

He looked right into my eyes and said slowly and gruffly trust me, just trust me, even though I have to admit I appreciate how tense and tight you’re getting. How could you not appreciate that? And he referred to it as fucking, not making love with, or making love to like some guys. I hate it when guys call it anything other than fucking. It’s men who don’t really respect you who do that, because they want you to think they are doing it for you, not for themselves, or that they like you or something, who say shit like that. Seriously, it turns my stomach. And he was constantly hard. The number of erections a man can have in one night lets you know a lot about what he will be like as a husband, what sex would be like if he was your husband, I mean.

❈

The first time you are with him he is like an explorer.

It’s like you are important.

I always think they will really want to be with me again, because I would do things for them, but they never do, not before, not even after.

❈

I draw a witch on my folders to remind myself of what I must look like to some of them. And I thought it was working, until this one day these girls standing behind me were whispering about how pretty someone wearing white was and I thought it was me they were talking about, because they were sitting right behind me. Of course, they weren’t, they were looking at a magazine. I don’t know what I have to do to remind myself. I’m so stupid sometimes. I can never remember how ugly I am. I have to keep reminding myself. Because, then, when somebody doesn’t want me, I remember, real quick. But because I can’t be sure that my face is why they are not calling, I keep hoping that they still will. But by the time I am sure, it’s too late. They have done something or said something to me that is really mean to prove to me that they don’t want me because I’m ugly.

That night with him I just couldn’t remember what I looked like.