
Things were going well, so I risked slipping my hand down my pants. I seemed into it, so I continued on. Then I’m like, Oh baby I want to make you come, and I’m like, Yeah, yeah, don’t stop. But my hand was getting tired. And frankly I didn’t seem to be responding. Maybe I wasn’t into it, after all. These mixed signals were confusing. I tried some fantasies—regressive, mentally-colonized-by-the-patriarchy-and-internalizing-my-own-oppression scenarios. I switched hands. Possibly I was only faking excitement. Was something wrong? What was I thinking? That last moan sounded real, but how can you ever really know.
For more, read our interview with Kim Addonizio and find out why she likes to write with constraints.
Kim Addonizio is the author of seven poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry, The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. She has received fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, two Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Award Finalist for her collection Tell Me. Her latest books are Mortal Trash: Poems (W.W. Norton) and a memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress (Penguin). She recently collaborated on a chapbook, The Night Could Go in Either Direction (Slapering Hol) with poet Brittany Perham. Addonizio also has two word/music CDs: Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing (with Susan Browne) and My Black Angel, a companion to My Black Angel: Blues Poems & Portraits, featuring woodcuts by Charles D. Jones.
Photo Credit: Linda on the Bridge to NewWhere
This story reflects my experience. Even masturbation is complicated, physiologically and psychologically — never mind sex with another person. Sometimes it seems not worth the effort. Of getting into the mood, and then all that other work.
Great concept. Great tiny read!