Sharon Olds, "Greed and Aggression"

Someone in Quaker meeting talks about greed and aggression
and I think of the way I lay the massive
weight of my body down on you
like a tiger lying down in gluttony and pleasure on the
elegant heavy body of the eland it eats,
the spiral horn pointing to the sky like heaven.
Ecstasy has been given to the tiger,
forced into its nature the way the
forcemeat is cranked down the throat of the held goose,
it cannot help it, hunger and the glory of
eating packed at the center of each
tiger cell, for the life of the tiger and the
making of new tigers, so there will
always be tigers on the earth, their stripes like
stripes of night and stripes of fire-light––
so if they had a God it would be striped,
burnt-gold and black, the way if
I had a God it would renew itself the
way you live and live while I take you as if
consuming you while you take me as if
consuming me, it would be a God of
love as complete satiety,
greed and fullness, aggression and fullness, the
way we once drank at the body of an animal
until we were so happy we could only
faint, our mouths running, into sleep.

This is not the first time I've posted a poem by Sharon Olds, and probably it won't be the last. There is just no other poet out there who seems to get sex in quite the same way I get sex but can't put into words. Can't put into words? I wonder if it is just my general laziness that is keeping me from those things I want, spilling from my fingers. 

Propositioning

There's this guy (we'll call him "this guy" for purposes of privacy, or whatever) who I had a strictly sexual relationship with starting at the tender age of sixteen or seventeen. We met online back when meeting online was tabboo and scary, and we met on a goth club's message board, to boot. I was in high school and he was in college, and although we continued to see each other (and sleep together) for a number of years on and off, we never were IN A RELATIONSHIP. I never called him my boyfriend, because he wasn't. He was just a guy who I liked to spend time with in the bedroom, and back then, even at that young age, that was cool with me. 

For whatever reason that I can't recall, we drifted apart and stopped seeing each other. We didn't have a falling out or anything. I dated people between seeing him and he did as well, and we just kept up with each other when we were single until a time when we just didn't anymore. 

Years later, this would be probably two or three years ago, I invited him to come down and visit me with every intention of getting laid, and then at the last minute I backed out and made him sleep on my couch. It was really awkward, saying no to him, but at that point in my life I felt like I wanted a REAL relationship instead of no-strings-attached sex. 

I'm past that point now, let's just say.

The online dating thing, it has its downfalls. My biggest problem is that it is really easy for me to find one or two details on someone's profile that will completely turn me off to the point I won't give them a chance. Mentioning video games more than once, not having even a loose grasp on the English language, and showing a great love for the outdoors are instant killers for me. If you haven't been on a dating site in a while, take it from me that right off the bat, 80% or more of the guys who message me get blocked, and more than half the time I don't even have to visit their profile to know they aren't for me - because they just can't communicate. If you can't show me you are even moderately intelligent in a paragraph, come on. 

Anyway, I've been back on OK Cupid lately, scoping out the scene, and today I noticed that 'this guy' was checking out my profile a week or so ago, and he hadn't messaged me. So I did the only thing a girl in my position would do - I messaged him on Facebook, and here's what I said:

"I'll be blunt. Are you currently single? If so, would you like to go out and catch up, etc?"

The et cetera in that sentence? I'm pretty sure he'll know what it really means. At least, I hope he does.

Anyone Who Touches Me Breaks My Heart

Maybe it's because I can't handle being alone
And the men that I find just don't give enough
Or they are not there enough
It's either me or them who's never enough
But I know there's a word for me
And it is: Hopeless

Maybe it's because I've faked so many orgasms
I might have forgotten what a real one feels like
But I still leave them breathless,
And so tired they can barely move afterwards
But they still have enough energy
To get up and drive home, or just
Make me take them there
Or they sleep on the couch or the floor
Just never next to me.

Maybe it's because they all know
I'm an easy one to use
Every man knows that
The women who can't even
Look at themselves in the mirror
Must be good in bed
Because they only care about pleasing others
Not themselves.

Maybe it's because I've always hoped too much
To hear someone calling my name
Though none of them ever do.
Some can't even get their tongues around it,
I try to explain it but no one listens
So when I'm screaming and crying:
"I don't know what I'm doing
I don't know who I am"
They just say 'Baby, come here'
And before I know it
Their tongue is in my mouth
Shutting me up
As if that's what it will take
To make me whole.

Maybe it's because I know
I'll be used until I die
Used for my money or my car
Or my bed or my poems
Or for my tongue or for
What's between my legs.
They will take and take and keep taking
And when I try to say
"I deserve better than this"
They won't even know
What I'm talking about.

I guess I wrote this back in 2003 or 2004. Now that I am putting poems online, I am really wishing I had dated these, but maybe I thought they would be timeless, or I thought they would be kept secret in my notebook forever.

When I decided to post a poem tonight, I was thinking of this one, and I swear when I opened my notebook the pages fell open on that particular page.

When I read these words, I can remember the time I wrote this, I remember why and for who. I remember the exact way it felt to be used and taken for granted, and I wonder, deep inside, do I still feel this way about myself? Do I still think that I am hopeless, and not worth real love?

I guess it's just one of those things I have to figure out about myself, and I'm glad to have a creative outlet in which to do that, still.

Sex Without Love

Today, because I am a glutton for punishment in the form of nostalgia, I went digging through my old Livejournal entries again. I thought I would be able to find something good to repost here as a cheat because today and tomorrow are going to be busybusy with campaign things, and yet all of the things I wrote, which are some of (in my opinion) the most beautiful words that ever fell from my hands, it was someone else's poem that I wanted to post today. Steph sent it to me years ago, and here it is again:

Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love:

How do they do it, the ones who make love

without love? Beautiful as dancers,

gliding over each other like ice-skaters

over the ice, fingers hooked

inside each other's bodies, faces

red as steak, wine, wet as the

children at birth whose mothers are going to

give them away. How do they come to the

come to the come to the God come to the

still waters, and not love

the one who came there with them, light

rising slowly as steam off their joined

skin? These are the true religious,

the purists, the pros, the ones who will not

accept a false Messiah, love the

preist instead of the God. They do not

mistake the lover for their own pleasure,

they are like great runners: they know they are alone

with the road surface, the cold, the wind,

the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-

vascular health- just factors, like the partner

in the bed, and not the truth, which is the 

single body alone in the universe

against its own best time.

It's been a long time, and sex without love is something I've known pretty intimately in my life. TMI? But this really is what it feels like, even when someone is on you and in you - a single body alone in the universe... I'm just way too nostalgic today for some reason.

As for NaNoWriMo, my progress has been great. As of last night I got to 11,449 words and I'm 1,453 words "ahead" of where I should be today. Unfortunately, I definitely will get NO writing done tomorrow, and probably none today either, but that's okay! I will be so pooped from tomorrow's campaign activities, I probably won't leave the house again for a week, so there will be plenty of laying in bed catch up time ahead of me.