Pet Fish
He’s hanging off that shit like a hooked fish.
Latched on, not letting go of it
no matter what. He’s not letting up—
Push that hair out the way, move the lips out the way.
And he’s suckin on that thing for his life.
But still as gentle as a breast-feeding baby or
I guess a nipple-licking man.
Either way he’s latched on
and I watch him hang from an appendage,
like a human sized earring or a misplaced catheter.
Like a piece of fruit that you can’t pull away.
You can move yourself up and down,
but he’ll follow you the whole way
He’s there. It’s the whole way. The whole thing.
I mean, it’s a beautiful thing
that I’ve never really appreciated until him.
I’ve had dudes eat it good, sure,
but he has a different spirit about it.
Like it’s something to hold between the folds of his mouth.
Like it’s something worth attaching one’s self to.
The whole time he is not letting go.
It’s practically an oral disorder.
Something deep rooted in his childhood somewhere.
Or maybe it’s just god’s gift, just another thing to be good at.
But then in real life ya thing is kinda always being on the move.
Telling me, yea gotta go I’ll be right back.
Gotta make this run or gotta stop at the house real quick.
Fake-hard to even get a hold of
People walking up to us, well you, like yo I texted you.
People wondering at me in the street about where he’s at.
I hear him getting called around the corner like yo come here real fast.
Even last night—ate it the fuck up like a real cute outfit.
Then left to deal with a situation about his cousin getting arrested.
Popped back up two hours later at like two am
and ate it again for like fifteen minutes straight.
And not just licking his tongue—
I mean holding the fuck on.
Pill Poppin Animal
Rushing to swallow abortion pills before picking my son up from school. It was noon, so I was googling how will you be exactly three hours after? to see if I’d be good to go in a little bit. And will I be good to then go drop off some late library books, get a burrito from a place near the school because how could I possibly cook? Or will I be half asleep at the wheel? Hella irresponsible feeling.
I don’t know if it was the loss of blood or the nausea pills they give you to take before taking the real pills. But the real thing is four dry-ass gritty pills that you stick to the insides of your cheeks. They start kinda melting or more like pieces start falling off in your mouth and you have to swallow them down and they burn your throat. It’s like dry little pieces of you know what I don’t even know what. Just dusty rocks, like extra thick granules of sand. They also give you one single pack of birth control pills to avoid you getting pregnant again. But you might want to skip those to avoid the chemicals.
The following weekend when all the bleeding was done, I found myelf high on E after not doing it for mad years. Went from sleeping for hours that one Friday afternoon and night to being wide awake the next one. Just up rubbing on my shit like never before taking forever to nut it almost hurt when I came on my ex that night that’s how tight the orgasm got. And I just kept on rubbing even after that. Had to do it right next to him since dude kept pushing me off. I think that turned him off. Oh well.
Next day, I would take some advil for a dehydration headache. Get home and realize I shouldn’t have actually let dude cum in me but it just felt so good, so I rushed to the store and got a plan b pill. Had to drive around to two places to finally acquire it. Ripped the package open like a wild animal in the car with it. Pulled out my little pink knife and had to cut through it to get to the teeny tiny pill in the middle of the middle of the box. Popped it. Didn’t even have to read the directions. I’ve been here before. I knew what would come—tired sleepy headache cramps blood. Yea yea whatever it’ll take it so that I don’t find myself at the end of the next week pregnant with the same dude’s kid
again.
Biography
Rachel Wagner is a writer from New Jersey, currently living in Newark with her son. She is an instructor at Seton Hall University and also runs an online bookstore called Ten Dollar Books. More of her work can be found at Rachel-Wagner.com.