Turning Men Into Poems
/Second Date
His room smelled like his neck
nervous pheromones
unsuccessfully masked
by unscented gender neutral deodorant.
I liked it so much
that
I pressed my nose
into that spot
behind his ear,
energy shivered
cold circuits
throughout my body.
He fiddled
with his laptop
when I came
back from the bathroom.
Pressing more
keys than he needed to,
he said
his music is as weird as he is
through the teeth of
a nervous exhale.
We listened, acting
like the hollow muscular cave
inside both our chests weren’t
chattering.
I don’t remember the music.
I knew
how permanent of a choice
this had been
in the past-
Coming
into a man’s bedroom.
Don’t you
ever just want more from a person?
I admitted
“Look. My femininity isn’t casual”-
I’d not believed
in my closed off heart
chakra
until his response
spatted onward about scars
from old lovers
and I squealed
“I have them too.”
and exactly
51% of the glass wall
around my disposition
melted
into his bed
underneath me.
I told him
I was slut shamed for
being raped,
about belonging to 45 year old men
when I was 18
because I desperately needed
to feel
intact,
only attempting
intimacy
with people I hate
because
I didn’t want to expose
good people
to
my poison.
He tells
interesting woman
he’s gay
because he is afraid
of being
a predator.
He asked
to touch me
and I answered
“I have body
dysmorphia”,
He wanted
to know more
about it.
I told him
if I were to share myself
with him
I would likely determine,
soon,
that all his niceness
was
constructed.
And he looked
at me with his big,
deep, sad, green
mind and
listened.
I told him.
I’m afraid
of men.
Therapy;
partners
who said
“Oh I forgot, you are a feminist”
when they could have said
“You are in charge
of what happens to you.”
With my legs clenched
together,
he declared he tastes
my openness
He told me
he doesn’t know
his pleasure;
when he is embraced
he thinks
about things like
size, smell, hair, being too early, or being too late.
Sharing until
finally
we settled.
His gaze
was hasty, like
it wanted
something,
I asked him
what he wants,
his imagination screaming
he was too
afraid to say the
words,
But I didn’t stop staring
at them. Words.
I thought
we wanted the same thing.
The room was heavy
and cloudy.
The music may have
stopped or our ears had
stopped listening.
I could taste his
delicate
ideas
of my power.
He said
“I only know you
by smell so far”
His arm reached around me
I squeezed him
and smelled him
and embraced him as,
as hard as I
absolutely could and
we were locked in
we surrendered.
Like we were insulating
possibilities,
recovering.
Like we were safe.
He said
“You aren’t broken”,
and we mourned
together
with our clothes on.
Third Date
I hid my face
under your padding,
poem
man, because
the last time
I allowed myself
to be this
exposed,
I believed that if
I can’t
see the world, it
can’t see me.
Fourth Date
Yesterday, I laid
on the floor
alone
and said
you just weren’t
the texting kind, and
I convinced
myself to believe it.
Today, I continued
to turn you into
a poem,
but I wasn’t
supposed
to give up
like that yet.
You were
a man
until,
you text me that
you weren't ready
for me
so this poem
is you now.
I don’t
want
you
to feel bad,
but
that was the first time
I have ever bought
two tickets to a concert
I really wanted you
to read yourself.
I wonder what
to do
with the tickets
I wrote
“you are special”
on the note
I haven’t changed
my mind.
This is not
a sad poem.
You
shattered
my glass heart,
previously
made of steel.
Although you said
to send daily texts
that didn’t get responses,
The only thing worse
than a
broken heart
is a heart
that can’t break
And.
The only thing worse
than a
bad poem
is a poem
that can’t exist
First Date
I was reading
on the bus
to meet you
about a girl who didn’t believe
in herself
and I knew it was
me,
so I was late
to you
because
I sat on the curb
to finish
and I realized
that
I was so sure
no one will like me.
So
when we were on the patio
and the band we had payed
to see was playing inside,
but I liked you more,
I didn’t stop myself from saying it.
Because
I let myself
like you.