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getting him on his back and keeping him down

by Lauren Singer

and so he says to me (as if i'm supposed to know already, as if i've planned this out) that he wants to find this tangible sort of person who's going to shock him, going to take him for a wild ride and finesse the boring out of his everydays. he looks to me as if i'm supposed to shake him from the stupor of the mundane. like i have the answers in some secret pocket i hold out on for the ones that truly touch me. but the truth is, he kills me a little bit, fucking boils my marrow, chews it between his teeth and spits me out. i am supposed to be there for him. even after he rides the shit out of the neighborhood. and we girls, we know his type. smooth conversation and good for the sort of love that digs its fingernails into your back and grips your body like it was nothing, like he was supposed to all along. like there was a button he could press and you'd just open up mechanically and let him into you. we're all guilty, really.

he's a rippled seduction on a time-bomb, cause one of these bitches is gonna snap one of these days and cut off his dick in a rage and we're not gonna be able to do a god-damn about it. he says to me i'm different from them. looks to me as though i'm gonna tell him it's alright for him to walk around like that in front of me, throw himself like a child in front of my gestured advances. and maybe i am telling him it's fine when he lays his head on my stomach and tells me he wants to move in. like everything would be easier if he could come home to me at night and i, accepting of his rug-burn and his bruises, will brush it off like hard day's work and we can make love to the radio and sing along in between thrusts.

he drinks the foam off of his beer and wipes his chin dry with his sleeve. he comes to me when he wants to be creative, or run around in the woods or talk about mortality. i'm his lonely scholar. he only drinks dark ale when it's cold out, so we're sitting in my bed and he's getting drunk, telling me he thinks this could be something and i'm dying to tell someone that i've tamed him, knowing too, the lifespan of his promises. there is never any actuality to him, is there? i don't know. he surprises. and so we end up sprawling out all the paper we can find on the floor and throwing paint at it, just dancing in acrylic colors, texturizing fabrics with mod-podge and pieces of things we find in drawers and we are laughing, rolling around in arts and crafts. and he says no one else knows how to humor him, and kisses me on the hand. i can't remember the last time someone kissed my hand and meant it.

and maybe i'm just stupid or naive to reconcile my differences and go soft for this womanizing sort who makes these hyperbolic plans to fall in love with the ideas of things. but it's what i've convinced myself i need. even if it will only shit on me, will play with my bones and use me until i run dry. and so i lay alone when he's not there, trying to conjur the faces of his peaking when he's not there to show me and i hide those smiles under pillows because i'm ashamed of the sort of desire that knows its only intent is to scar.

04/19/2007

Posted on 04/19/2007
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Elizabeth Seago on 04/21/07 at 12:50 AM

How is it possible that nobody has commented on this yet? This is lovely. $#%@ing amazing, is what it is. Your vivid imagery and brutal honesty knocks me on my ass. I love it. Honesty isn't commonplace anywhere. Even in poetry. Which is sad, really, if you think about it. That people feel the need to lie not only in their everyday, but also in the words that nobody else really needs to see. High five for breaking free.

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