Because men (mis)assume I must be an uptight bitch who has not seen a seedy motel. Or that maybe I’m starving, so they go straight to serving peaches and eggplant emojis after Hi.
Because my arms and legs house scars in the shape of blades and broken rulers from lone underage drinking in my room. I want a man to wrap my tattered skin around him like a queen’s cloak. Because I want to be unfurled the old, parched map that I am. Chest-held amid ocean storms and calm seas.
Because first-time talk is awkward, especially when yours was a teal plastic phallus with fangs when you were five. Because countless familiar hands tried to ripen me, the slow, fat kid. My mind has memorized 13 faces that I wish to forget.
Because the first time I agreed to sex, I thought I wanted it, but I only needed to know what it feels like with consent. Still, my body grew weary of opening itself up to men who come and leave after giving me instructions on how I should want to be screwed. Because after okay, my flesh burst into an open wound. A man chloroformed me with three heady syllables to keep filling me when I said stop. He zipped up quicker than I longed to be held. I was only my tongue. I was only my stroke-perfect palms. I was not a self with opinions. I was a tangled thread left untangled. Because despite that, I vowed to love him to the ends of the earth.
Because my trauma meter was color-blind. Only eight years later did I realize everything was scarlet, not seafoam.
Because I had already bleached us off the walls to make room for seafoam.
Because at 36, I discovered my body the way it deserves to be discovered. Only in my kind, tender hands did I learn how beautiful making love is. The tears and laughter boundless, as a tiny wren flapped out of my ribcage, heavy in song.
Because sex is a tango between dirty and delicate, insatiate and gentle, mourning and rapturous moans. And I want to dance.
Because for once, I need a man to listen to my body. It was soiled, yet in my bones a temple. Because it has been to war and wants to come home somewhere truly safe, not my chaos-born old safe.
Because I will not say I love you again to feel a quarter-loved. When I decide to fuck again, it will be because my body is my body.
Because my body is my body.
Because I am taking it back.
Because I would rather be fuck-free than trade my temple and the woman reigning it for anything less
again.
This piece was first published on The Hooghly Review’s Issue 2 (October 2023).
