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Poetry for mojo 14

Sam Herschel Wein — a total sum compilation of my most intimate failures

I rip so many pairs of underwear. I lose
one of every sock. maybe I should cry
from looking at abstract art more than I
do. sometimes I mumble on the phone.
sometimes I giggle when a boy nibbles
my ear, but I like it that way. it’s more
raunchy that way, if raunchy is the overall
amount of square feet of my body that
is enjoying a sexual encounter, then
raunchy is sneering while smacking you
with a pillow, suffocating you in make
believe. raunchy is telling you I’m
gonna fart if you don’t give me some
space when I said I needed a break,
raunchy is the amount of times we
can sneak naked to the bathroom
without getting caught by my awake-
at-odd-hours-of-the-night roommates.
so typical me, taking a poem about
things I’m bad at and making it
about my kooky sex patterns. or
maybe what I’m trying to say is that
I need to be having better sex. I
want the better sex where we don’t
have sex at all because you’re still
crying about your friend who is dying,
or the blowjob we interrupt because
one of us is having a flashback to trauma
and needs to be coddled and held. I want
the orgasm where we scream louder
than we need to because the downstairs
neighbors asked us not to, with their loud
music. I want so many layers of socks, on
us, on the bed, littering the floor. If the
velocity of a sock flying towards the
window is increased by the joy of
my naked body in its enhanced
gusto, then maybe I’m a failure for never
shattering any glass, for never feeling
the type of freedom in nakedness
that an elderly person does, looking
over their scrunched up skin and
counting the hymns and prayers of
their mothers. maybe I don’t know
how to relax. maybe if I keep buying
more dried fruit, I can poop with the
fervor of a broccoli-stalk-obsessed
caterpillar. maybe I should watch less
porn where people shave themselves.
Stuff the sock into my mouth. I wanna
black out.