Red Forever

A man texts, jacked off like 15 ago but could probably still fuck if you wanted.

Large and sweaty. Parts of him smooth as baby, parts dirty like him. How did his arms get that way, pressing in around my fingers, the softness I loved turning white, outline pink. I loved his hairless chest and liked to eat with him in bed. This is how it starts: a man feeds me, a man fucks me, and I mosey into motherhood. Before I know it, I defrost chicken. The world is green, I might as well push a stroller of him, every text is a forfeit of time. The writing suffered. My movements weighed like too much swimming, and all I thought is how else to give, how else we smile together, at what cost his fulfillment, my legs grown weaker all the time.  

I knew a man who said he wanted to fuck me without a condom more for the thrill of being in me than the feel. Throw a hairy, fried-food body on me and huff, huff, huff. During my period, he’d say runs red forever with his dick in the bathroom sink. 

Another service industry, another white shirt and black tie. Hold the tray overhead, never go down on me. Dry as cracking skin on his sunburnt nose, but go on: stick it. I’m fine, work in an hour, should shower or else squirm out of all this skin: I’m bound to it.

Different men have turned every light on and stripped me nude. Kept their shirts on. 

I want to see your bodies, but I’m already in front. It wouldn’t matter now. Go on, fabric sticks throughout all time, and when I leave, I will take something, add it to my pile of disappointment trophies.

I knew a man who from behind apologized for taking too long but was definitely not taking too long. 

What a punk, a screamer. Didn’t know his voice could sound like that, didn’t know all those black clothes were sexier under lights controlled by someone else, but I move in and out, a crowd myself among the crowd, giving a scream every now and then because the part I want to play feels most important, an act that warms, I want to keep. Just keep going.

I know a man who drives a stick shift and makes dick jokes about it. You want to ride this? 

How would that even work. I am a whole body. 

Things men have said to me during sex that you could also say at dinner with your family:

I can’t believe this is happening.
It’s so pink.
You like it raw?
How do you take it?
I can’t take much more of this.
Thank the good Lord for breasts and thighs!
Hand me that bottle.
Hand me those napkins.
This tastes like rubber. 
When’s the next bus coming?

The poor reasons float by, little memory boats: handsome, money, tall, a good fuck, boyfriend dick, dozens of grocery store bouquets, body compliment, the pedestal, feeling in my stomach when they’d say, they’d all say, Oh my God, yes, God. God lets smaller men feel their way through the unimaginable dark. God lets smaller men stare at the sopping heart of a woman who would rather die by dog than antler, rather die by blade than poison. They reach me, a different woman than the picture. In the picture, I stand before a wall of pink roses with my chest out, in the picture it’s about my eyes, in the picture I am what happens before the lights go out and my face shadows into control. Oh my God, I am God. I am letting and letting, beating and beating.

Come to shelter, come to breast, feathers hanging from mouths, you depraved steers. 

If I say it will run red forever, open your mouth. 

Lauren Burgess is a queer writer from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is an MFA candidate at Louisiana State University where she serves as assistant poetry editor to New Delta Review. Her work has appeared in Ellipsis, and she is a recipient of the Ryan Chighizola Memorial Award for poetry.