by KELLY ZEN-YIE TSAI
it’s a conversation that i’ve had
many times before.
my words:
i don’t know why i feel like i have to
have sex with people other than you –
recreational purposes?
the dagger stabs through the heart
the flame extinguishes in the eye
the naked body in bed next to mine shrivels up
face stiffened back to its daily street armor
i continue:
look, i’m not a cheater…but i’m not a committer.
i’ll never lie to you.
i’ll always tell you the truth
whatever you wanna know
just ask me.
for me, monogamy is no gift.
i start wearing grey and brown and
black all the time, i lose the shine
from my fingernails, my eyelids,
my lips.
i start framing my life in finalities,
all ends, no beginnings, i transform
myself into a freakish hybrid sort of nun.
any sexual attention becomes a betrayal,
a trespass of glances upon skin,
my body no longer able to defend
or accept based on its own volition
if i really love you, i’m supposed
to tell you that this pussy is yours,
these arms, these titties, these toes.
i’m supposed to tell you that all fantasies
of other men’s peniuses in my mouth have been
magically wiped from my teeth and my tongue
and that my thumbs don’t fiend to stroke
the dip in throat of that woman on the train.
hold up, i have experienced your counter-strike before:
you’re about to show me that
your love is the real love
your sex is the real sex
you’re about to show me that
i am the intimacy-impoverished,
love-starved, sex-blinded,
impossible-yet-adorable-and-rescuable ho.
you shall heal all of my mortal wounds
and when i get a taste of your lovin’,
i’m not gonna want for nothin’ else, right?
all snake oil and revival tents,
ill-thought-out baptisms and
half-baked resurrections
i didn’t ask you in my bed to be my savior
i didn’t ask you in my bed to be my master
i asked you in my bed to be my lover
and my friend.
my kisses on your chest may not be exclusive,
but they’re not random either.
my legs spread on other nights don’t subtract
from how tightly they grip yours
tonight
our bodies rise and fall
in unison
my ear on your wrist
listens singularly to the palpitations
of your pulse
you and me
me and you
this moment
let’s start here first.
*YELLOWGURL POEM FEB2010 – A love (?!) joint, um, kinda — inspired by “She’s Gotta Have It” for the Brooklyn Celebrates Spike Lee event last summer 🙂 — as always feel free to fwd — Blessings, Kells