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      August 29, 2022He Asks About My KinksValerie Nies

      Valerie Nies

      HE ASKS ABOUT MY KINKS

      Because I feel naked
      during these conversations, I start small
      with the lights turned off. Tell him I like my hair
      pulled. He nods. Tell him I like dirty talk: Spank
      me, daddy. Lick my geode.
       
      And then what? he asks.
      Because he has a sister and a Planned Parenthood
      bumper sticker on his fridge, I reveal fantasies I’ve never said
      aloud, like what really rocks my clam is going
      to the Thai restaurant on South First
       
      with a 33-year-old video editor named Jeremy
      and not having to text my girlfriends
      my location, In case I die. What pinches
      my nipples is getting caught with my legs
      hugging his face in the middle
       
      of a downtown avenue under street lamps
      turned on bright for once to save women instead
      of dimmed to save the city a few bucks. What wets
      my carpet is being blindfolded with a future
      is female t-shirt while reruns of a sitcom
       
      about a peppy blond bureaucrat who runs
      for office in Indiana air during the Law and Order SVU slot
      because there are no more stories
      of jealous husbands prying open their wives’
      skulls with happily-never-afters.
       
      Because the last time I had sex I said yes
      not because I wanted to but because my boyfriend’s
      eyes said I deserve this and you belong
      to me and I didn’t want a story
      I’d have to keep in the back
       
      of my nightstand like a velvet satchel
      of trauma. I’d rather pull out
      a hot pink vibrator than a hot pink taser. It would be so hot
      to make a man my cuckold. Except instead of watching me fuck
      another guy, he’s watching me watch edgy white male filmmakers
       
      write something they know instead
      of yet another fetishized rape scene, and then maybe
      I tickle his ear and whisper: one in six women, or maybe
      it’s four? Until he begs me to stop. Stop. STOP.
      I have nieces.
       
      Like that’s his safe word.

      from #76 - Summer 2022

      Valerie Nies

      “In 1997, I read the book Brain Droppings by George Carlin. One particular bit used lexicon, and my 18-year-old heart fell in love with both comedy and poetry. I love what both genres have in common: the potential to disarm through economy of language, and the poetry I enjoy most takes me from humor to the unexpected.”