I decided to try out one of
’s writing prompts today:“Desire fulfilled is desire destroyed.”
Ride ‘em, gouache on paper, 2024
March
I brush my teeth and your face pops up between my legs. I’m at Goodyear getting a new tire and that drunken stare haunts me. Your phantom touch gives me shivers. I try to shake you off, scream at the top of my lungs, and drive down streets lined with Southern Live Oaks, windows down, blaring that song by Iris Dement that reminds me of you.
'Cause making love with you's not just a hobby
No, it's the flame that burnt the forest down in me
I know it’s not love; I don’t know you. Love, like that, is helping each other navigate the days and I don’t know what your days are like. They’re probably spent with drugs and other women. I wrote a list of things I want to know about you including what you buy at the grocery store and how you treat your mother. Perhaps it’s lust again, a familiar beast. I want to ask him if we could do it again, cause why the hell not? But it couldn’t be just one more time, I’d need a steady fix. My friends call it “limerence,” a word I despise, coined in the 1960s by an American psychologist. Why does American psychology have to pathologize everything, even innocent crushes? Can we have no fun in this world?
The morning after I hoped for a text, maybe something flirty, confirming how amazing it was. But soon the high left and days dragged on until finally, you wanted to check in. You laid down romantic boundaries and reminded me that you’re emotionally unavailable since recently getting your heart broken and you can’t get involved with anyone too quickly. Smart man. Smart, honest, wild, beautiful man. What if he knows this is the ultimate carrot on a line? I should tread cautiously, but that’s not my style. My philosophy on pleasure is to throw caution to the wind and get it while you can. Women don’t get nearly enough pleasure to balance out the pain in this life. We deserve to swim through rivers of pleasure, and that’s where you held me that first night, in my twin bed that I was embarrassed to reveal to you. You almost fell off at one point. Afterwards, you just held me and I traced your hairy chest with my fingers, tickling you gently for a precious few minutes before you had to leave to be up in 5 hours for work. And then you were gone and I sank back into the darkness while our souls kept dancing together, vibrating outwards for miles. A low and persistent craving developed when the rush faded, like a vessel that never remains full no matter how much you pour in.
Perhaps I’m deprived and/or I just have a healthy libido. Maybe I’m not crazy but have an acute awareness of the fragility of this life. If one of us died in a month, I would regret not bringing this up, and making another move and touching you as much as possible. Perhaps you’re afraid I can’t handle “casual sex,” whatever that means. You might be right.
I’m scheduling this to be sent out in a few months, right before I leave town for the summer, so on the off chance you read it, I won’t be as mortified. I’ll be too far away, unbothered and sipping Strega by the beach in Portugal surrounded by sexy surfers or pining over a handsome young Irishman at a local pub. But hopefully, I’ll be feeling completely satisfied by all the sex we’ve had…
April
I think he scratches a deep psychological itch I have. His destructive patterns of escapism and avoidance satisfy my destructive patterns of loving men who don’t love themselves. He told us he identifies with the “Tristan” character from Legends of the Fall, an unattainable rebellious cowboy. Everyone who loves Tristan the most dies in the wake of his destruction. He’s played by young Brad Pitt, with beautiful long honey hair and a ripped body. Growing up, this was my mom and I’s favorite movie, and she’d always tell me Tristan reminded her of my dad, who also was called to wild ways by something calling from his soul.
(Please watch this movie if you haven’t, but be prepared to sob.)
This man-crush came to me within a new friend group that fell together out of nowhere. Noticing how close I feel to these new people and thinking about when I met them doesn’t add up, but relationships can’t be measured like that, love is inherently irrational. Our friendship sprouted with the energy of Spring; we all needed each other at the right place and time.
One of the Louisiana locals in our group hosted a crawfish boil for us. In a strangely comforting way, he reminds me of the men I grew up with in Florida, in the sense that he has a boat, fishes, and owns guns. We stood around a foldable table in his driveway and peeled tails, gorging on sea meat for hours and taking shots of bourbon out of the emptied carcasses. It was the first time I’d seen my crush since his birthday passed (which he spent with his ex). I had curated a gift for him that consisted of a small painting on paper I’d made of me riding him outside in a pasture while wearing a cowgirl hat and boots and on the back I recommended “Buckets of Rain,” by Neko Case (we both love bluegrass/Americana/folk), a harmonica, 2 joints, and a shot of whiskey in a bag that said: “from one sex goddess to another, happy birthday.” But the day before I decided it was too much, so I edited it down to 1 joint and the whiskey.
Buckets of rain, buckets of tears
I got all them buckets comin' out of my ears
I got buckets of moonbeams in my hand
And you got all the love, honey baby, I can stand
I been meek, hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke
And friends will arrive and disappear
You want me, honey baby, I'll be here
Like your smile and your fingertips
And like the way you move your hips
And I like the cool way you look at me
Everything about you is bringing me misery(Buckets of Rain, originally by Bob Dylan)
loved this one. i also hate that we have to pathologize crushes!!!! LET US CRUSH!!!!