KISSING
A peek into how an erotic poem came to me and what it did to me
Today I want to tell you the story of how I came to write what may be the hottest poem I’ve ever written. And all the ways its presence is unlocking me.
But first, tell me: what can you make from these ingredients?
2 cups of dinner prep
7 tbsp kid rage
1/2 cup sullen teenager
1 meeting with accountant
15 cups task updates
2 exhausted adults
That’s not even a salad.
We have an egalitarian partnership, Pat and I.
Both of us cook, clean and care for kids. We work together and have done since almost the beginning of our 21 year relationship.
So we have very little carpet to sweep our problems under.
And as a result, there’s little we haven’t already addressed.
But what to do about this inconvenient yearning for heat?
This wanting a return to aliveness?
How to stay loyal to the relationship
To each other and
Ourselves
Without becoming domesticated by it?
About that poem:
KISSING
Mouth open,
your teeth at the soft of my lip
not breaking skin
but promising.
An ask
A tell
A prayer.
Weight,
just enough to
breathe against.
To resist.
Melting,
breath contagious,
ribs unlocking
knees undone
Their argument forgotten.
Whispers
Moans
Your tongue unlocks time and
history twines around us,
now and forever
dissolving into
Always.
Now for the backstory:
A few weeks ago, something inside me woke up.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say something inside us woke up.
Us being my husband and me.
Together for more than 21 years.
Comfortable.
Safe.
But safety isn’t always safe.
Sometimes it’s stifling.
Sometimes it’s stagnation.
Both are the opposite of
heat.
And my body, alive again after Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,
Alive again after flirting with the edge of not wanting to be,
My body is louder than ever.
She has needs.
She has wants.
She wants depth, vividness, intensity
She doesn’t just want nourishment
She wants a way to explore
hunger.
