When We Say We Want Tenderness We Haven't Found A Punishment We Can Live With

Aricka Foreman



Careening between cuffing seasons, I let
myself be good a sinner. Our tongues
tussle between this three am fog and nothing
is miraculous about our bodies except our petulant
hunger. You my one-off lover massage my
calloused feet and we fill the dusk with nothings.
Feign intimacy. It’s all fine and dark and I push
your face deep enough into my water, pretend this is
what desire feels like. But oh, what the clit will do
to remember a collaborative song, its selfish tenor.
I am no different than any other animal and the lies
we tell: when we say we want tenderness we mean
we haven't found a punishment we can live with.
When I say cup the stretch marked meat, slap
the hip’s horizon until it vibrates the highest pitch,
I mean let's make a terrible love song in which
I mean there is no love in conquest in which I say
I'm sorry for the acquisition committed by this
lonely and how I wish I wanted to take it back.