Sex+: Two Pieces by A. Benét
I Dream of Being the Other Woman
Yellow brushes over the diner booths.
You’re close enough that I can read
the text you send her. I’ll be home late,
love you. Tonight, the I belongs to
me. We look at each other, aware of
what is waiting across this bridge
of fire. I want you to keep your wedding
band on. I want you to read your vows
into my spine. Your wife is keeping
your side of the bed warm and here you
are, with me and my puddle of writhing need.
My clothes feel too tight, they slip off
like oil. You haven’t touched me yet,
some sort of restraint, like looking over
the edge of an abyss before you jump,
but your looking is a dare
look how quickly you make me forget myself.
Write your sexual life story in five sentences.
One day, after a shower, I passed a mirror and forgot to be disgusted by my drooping breasts and unshaved legs, by the scars that tattoo my skin, or the fantasies that came to my mind, as it had since I first learned the word desire. Back then, sex always meant two bodies, a take and a demand to give, a starving that no meal could satisfy, a secret kept locked in a box in the dark. I spent years covering myself in dirt for the pleasure of others, denying myself. Now I only listen to the growl of my own voice and when I am hungry, it is not to fill a hole or to create one in others, it is for myself. I am a being constantly becoming, and there is no pleasure that knows my shame.
About A. Benét
A. Benét is a Black, Queer poet, and MFA student at San Diego State University. Her poems have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and been published, or is forthcoming, in Foglifter Press, Diode Poetry, Tiny Spoon Magazine, and more. You can find her on BlueSky @benetthewriter.