Women don’t want sex as much as men

Poetry in free verse

If you knew how fervently I hoped,
wished,
prayed,
that you wouldn’t want to touch me,
so I wouldn’t have to turn you down,
would you still want to stay with me?

I want to leave,
I want to go,
but my parents love you so,
and my friends — 
they think you are perfect,
that you always make me laugh,
that we make the perfect couple,
and I am selfish to want more.

They tell me it’s okay
if I am not so keen on letting you touch me,
it’s okay because
women don’t want sex as much as men,
that just because I am laughing,
I must be happy.

But they don’t know how my mornings go,
how I drag myself out of bed before you wake up,
and cry in the shower
till the water on the bathroom floor
tastes of salt.

I think of that honey-eyed boy I met in Paris
how he had made me feel wanted, craved for,
how he had made me feel — alive -
how sex with him was about pleasure and not about duty-
and I wonder how different life would have been
if I had given him a chance
and gathered the courage to give up on us.

I wish you treated me bad, though,
so I would have a reason to leave
so I wouldn’t feel like a villain
for not being satisfied with what the world calls perfect.

I wish you didn’t have to be so wrong — 
oh, so wrong — 
for me.

And, as we walk out to dinner,
facing the world, hand-in-hand,
you think my smile is for you,
but in my head,
I am thinking of honey and laughter,
and sex that made the stars in the sky squirm and shiver,
and Paris.

I’m always thinking of Paris.

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