Sex

In the fourth grade

They

Teach us about sex, but

What do we really know?

Contraceptives

Masturbation

Pleasure

Are Foreign concepts to us

So,

What is sex,

Really?

Is it the way I bite my lip,

Undressing you with my eyes?

No.

It’s my great uncle eyeing me up

At cousin Jared’s wedding

Committing every curve of my body to memory

Before even learning my name.

It’s crying

On my first real boyfriend’s waterbed

Staring at the ceiling

Silently begging him to hurry up

Wanting it to be over

It hurt

But not as badly

As the months to come

Sex is

“close your legs, and sit like a lady”

As if an eight year old

Needs to be sexualized

It’s him.

Sneaking off with

Mistresses

Hookers

Forcing himself on my neighbor

I used to play outside with her every night

Now,

I close my eyes and can only picture

Her

Driving past our house

In her brick red truck

Flipping off the idea of him

Sex is emotional manipulation

Guilt tripping

Begging and pleading

Just needing me to

Open my gates to you

Because

You’re just so stressed out at work

It’s covering up

Begging them

“don’t look at me”

Sex

Is living in anger

Fear

Almost every girl I know

Is a victim

Scratch that.

Survivor.

Sex is

“kiss her when she’s mad at you”

It’s

“does that feel good?”

It’s staring up into the darkness of

My ex-friend Jake's mini van

Imagining that I could dissolve into

The darkness

As he continues on for

45

Straight.

Minutes.

Conveniently “forgetting” his girlfriend

I didn’t forget.

Go on, jakey

Tell me how you were raised to

Treat women like queens

Lucky for you I’m not a queen

I’m a fighter, and

The bitch who spilled your secret

Love shouldn’t hurt

Neither should sex

But you used both

And hurt me twice