My dream relationship situation
I think I’ve finally figured it out.
It’s taken me my whole life:
a first love who flattened me,
one failed Freudian marriage,
one guy I was crazy in love with,
to figure out what I want.
It’s so liberating.
What I’d like is to have
two, or maybe three guys
that I can sms whenever I like
We can talk naughty or nice
but we don’t see each other in person
unless they keep hassling and
I know I need to make an appearance
just to keep the situation going.
So I keep reality to a minimum
and when I am restless or bored
I just send an sms into the unknown.
If one doesn’t respond
I’ll send a message to the other one
and so on, and I’ll feel good, when one responds
kind of like when an alcoholic has a drink
but I don’t drink or smoke
I think they are disgusting habits
But I’ll have this addiction instead.
And if I want to have sex, I’ll just sms dirty
then I’ll go to my bedroom, lay in my bed
and imagine one of them in my head
being everything they can never be
because I’m a writer and I’m good at that
filling in the blanks, making up stories
I can touch myself to different scenarios
love sex or bad sex, whatever I’m in the mood for
I can give myself a mind-blowing orgasm
have a bit of a sleep, then get up
do some writing, work on building my career
be ambitions, get further and further on my own
build up my own security, my own comfort
pick up my daughter from school
play and draw with her
cuddle her, love her
cook her dinner
tuck her into bed
send out one or two smses if I feel like it
attain some male attention
watch Seinfeld and eat chocolate
have a cry if I feel like it
but take comfort in knowing
that each tear makes me stronger
and in one or two years
I won’t cry anymore
Then I’ll go to bed and have
the whole bed to myself
You don’t like it? Don’t Fuck it
I tell you I’ve waxed my hairs
that I’m as smooth as a baby’s bottom
and you make a comment about my landing strip
say that it should make a departure like the rest of my hairs
But let me tell you something, Mr
Just ’cause you’re the unofficial man
in my life, for the time being (lucky you)
don’t give you the right to make calls like that
If you don’t like it? Don’t fuck it.
Because let me tell you something:
If I can’t be bothered waxing
and my hairs grow out a bit, they grow
And if I feel like never waxing again, I won’t
Why do you get the luxury of being all hairy
while I got to go through the agony of wax?
Nah, you don’t like it? Don’t fuck it
I really like you and everything
but I got to make this really clear:
(I know I’m exaggerating but this is a poem)
If I don’t want to wear makeup, I won’t
If I don’t want to straighten my hair, I won’t
If I don’t want to dress up one day, I won’t
You don’t like it? Too bad
Whether I do or I don’t
I still feel like a woman
Hairs or no hairs
If you see me as different
that’s your problem
(not that you would, I’m just saying! xxx)
I know we’re not even fucking
but that’s irrelevant
because we might or
we probably will
eventually
(maybe)
So let me say it again:
If you don’t like the ‘situation’? Don’t fuck it.
You don’t like it?
Then don’t fuck it.
Restraint
The night we first met at the party
I wanted to kiss you, played it cool instead
But you can’t stop two magnets, coming together
Restraint. You came at me with a bag full of
long-term relationship essentials
when we hadn’t even had our second date
and I said ‘hey hold on, steady on’
handed over a book I borrowed from the library on restraint
along with a bunch of projections from my past relationships
shoved in a few angry poems to go and you dropped the lot
said I’d better erect my cage
that you are prone to shark behaviour
just out of a relationship and I should
run
even though I feel safe in your arms
Restraint. Afraid of where to place my foot
I stack my defences stanzas high
wear my poetry like clothing
warm scarves of the past
wrapped round and round and round
until you’re helping me with the final layers
Restraint. You don’t want a bar of the sabotaging poetry
say it’s not for you, and I’m not sure if it’s for me either
Restraint. You refrain from kissing me
Take me out to dinner instead
worry and fuss over me
reinforce our friendship
Restraint, I kiss you instead
200 plutonic text messages in two days
while I’m sick, recovering
and the banishment of sex
from our vocabularies
has not removed the thought
from our minds
Restraint. There’s no mistake:
We want to fuck, yet we come apart
at the last minute.
Restraint. Let’s get one thing straight:
I knew this wasn’t going to be easy
Exercising restraint in the first place
was easier said than done
and now we’ve come to a point
where I don’t know what we are
afraid you’ll pull the plug
hesitating my next move
not wanting you to disapprove
of my motives or intentions
examining my inflections
not wanting you to take the best of me
while you disappear slowly down the drain
Restraint. Wanting you to pull the bottle away from your lips
rather than relying on me to inspire you to do so
Watching you from the sidelines of your life
your coitus revelry, self-sabotage accelerating
restraining from peeling off my stickers to bandaid you
Restraint. We’ve tossed our relationship onto the roulette wheel
and I have never been so afraid of fucking something up
Restraint, you say the start of a relationship
is supposed to be daffodils and dreams
both of us accustomed to jumping straight in
swimming naked, chin high in bed sheets
Restraint. Restraint. Restraint.
Just friends but then you’re biting my neck
holding my face, kissing my lips, and I’m insisting
bed bed bed wanting you to undress my thoughts
so I am naked my before you
Restraint. Restraint. Restraint.
Tie me up. Force feed me your love
til I come shouting your name.
Cover my mouth, fuck me til I can’t feel by body
Restrain me from myself.
Restraint. Restraint. Restraint
Restraint. Too much thinking
And when the analysis has been said and done
we always come apart at the last minute
holding hands, smiling, laughing…
Til I say ‘enough’
What are we doing??
This is hurting
I don’t want you
But I want you
I end all contact
Restraint. Restraint. Restraint
Next show is at La Mama Courthouse, Exonerating the Body 30th April 7:30pm
Me and my naked body
I never liked looking at my body in the mirror
and now, it’s kind of a betrayal
this year, the year overruled by my body,
ulcers burning my insides, compounding pain
endometriosis and God knows what else
flowering in my womanly parts
spreading like weeds
to other organs
Someone once ripped off my clothes
because I couldn’t stand the sight of
skin stretched, sin bulging and exposed
quickly, cover me up, quickly…
The other day my daughter
wanted to get changed at the pools
in front of everyone, and she wouldn’t listen
she couldn’t understand why we had to get changed
in the change rooms, we have to get changed in the
change rooms, please, listen – would you just listen!
I don’t want people to see your vagina! LISTEN!
Innocence glistening away…
I’m looking in the mirror
skinnier than I usually would be,
undies and singlet, my legs, no, my legs…
And not that I would ever look at myself
naked, no, no, no way…
When I was little
I accidentally saw Dad showering
He was furious at my Mum
Dirty, disgusting, pleasure is wrong dirty, don’t touch yourself, shouldn’t touch yourself, no sex till you’re married, look at the walls! Dirty TV shows! Look at the walls! Look at the walls! You have to be a virgin, be a virgin, no boyfriends, no sex, sex is wrong, sex is right with your husband, but sex is wrong, sex is bad, I can’t have sex, it hurts, can’t fuck my own husband, what is wrong with me, pain, you want me, come and get me, your sex, our sex, sweet, bitter pain, pain, pain, bad, bad, bad…
When they operate on me soon
they should stick a shovel in
and scoop out all the womanly parts
that seem to control me
They should de-sex me
so I can never think sex
dream sex, want sex,
they should de-pleasure me
clean out any remainders, any reminders of him
and our spring-sunshine-on-my-face ecstasy
My body. Are you denying or inspiring me?
Maybe I should play some music to eradicate all this
Something nice like ‘The Summer’ by Josh Pyke
It’s on a CD that my friend gave me
and it reminds me of laying
in the park with her, in the sun
and our bodies
Now there is a new man in my life.
‘Let’s take our clothes off,’ you said to me yesterday
My body shook its head. Nothing against you, but no.
You kissed my forehead. You held me.
My body, one day you and I
we will love each other
we will look into a mirror
me and my naked body
and we won’t be
two entities divided by
pain and the past
One day, we will
Love each other
In the meantime
let’s go to bed &
rest
I psychotically love you
*** WARNING sexually explicit language ***
It’s insane I know
After all the abuse I’ve hurled at you
All your lying and cheating
But I can’t fight it any longer:
I psychotically love you
And I have no idea if it’s real love
All I know is I must be nuts
For feeling the way that I do
No man has affected me in this way
The words won’t stop or go away
I saw your photo the other day
You are the most beautiful man
I have ever seen
The composure of you
To stand beside me, my muse
I have too much to say
I just can’t make sense
Of it, or my feelings
Other than to submit
To what is, woman
Because when I’m in your arms
The scent of you
Evaporates my existence
And I cease to
Kill us with my words
Student to teacher
You are my preacher
You eliminate my why
And I am at life’s high
And all that I am certain of is
The warmth on your tongue
Should exist on my clit, always
You should push down my thighs
Persist while I resist
Licking it
Fast, fast, fast
Slowing, for eternity
And your hands and lips
Should push past and insist
On taking control of my breasts
Possessively
To pry my crossed arms apart
Because I never let any man
Touch them or lick my cunt
But with you I say
Do whatever
Open me, unwrap me
My pride is brushed aside
I may hide, behind my poems
Yell that I never want to see you again
But I know it’s not true
I psychotically love you, babe
You bastard, arsehole, prick
And nothing does the trick
I can’t erase you from my skin
All it would take is one look
The Antarctic glaciers that are your eyes
And my poems would shatter
Nothing else would matter
Except you and me
Even in my decision
To set myself free
I live with this love
That overfills my heart
Spills out onto my life
And drowns it
This is my reason
This is my truth
I psychotically love
YOU
(But I think I may
love myself more
hence our separation,
you dickhead!)
Editorial assistance provided by Les Zig from [Untitled] pocketbook. Thanks, Les!
She is his Mrs
***WARNING – sexually explicit language ***
(inspired by something someone said to me)
He may tell you, he doesn’t love her
say that they’re not right for each other,
that the two of you are more compatible
yet she is the one he holds in the night
because she is his Mrs
He may say he is going to break up with her soon,
doesn’t want to lose you, but can’t just yet,
because she’s sick or depressed
but he’s getting his dick wet
in two places
his whore and his Mrs
You might be fighting for your man with persistence
so you can therefore become his Mrs
(finally after all your hard work)
But you’re just running into a brick wall
Because if he’s doing it to her,
what makes you think
he isn’t gonna do it to you?
It’s not like your immune
to his infidelity and intimacy issues
You may have the best connection
you’ve ever had in your life,
but is it possible you only hold his attention
for the duration of his erection?
Has he ever been there for you
when you’ve felt glum or blue?
Do you think it’s possible he’s just a prick?
Because if you got sick
what makes you think
he’d be there for you?
Trust me, it happened to me.
He was gone, and I thought I was wrong.
Because he doesn’t owe you anything
You’re not his Mrs
SHE IS HIS MRS
so maybe you should tell him to stick it
Because ask yourself:
what the fuck are you exactly
getting from the prick?
Maybe it’s time to consider
buying a vibrator
He may tell you he hasn’t had sex for weeks
but what else is he gonna say
to get you in the sack?
If he’s lying to her
he’s lying to you!
You’re not immune!
It doesn’t make a difference
if they’re married or not
She is his Mrs
So stop trying to make him your man,
men like that don’t understand
They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing
because they’re fucked in the head
Stop trying to convince yourself
that this time it’s different
It’s NOT
You know when him and her get better
he’ll drop you in bloody second
So walk away with your head high
till it’s almost touching the sky
with the following thoughts in your mind:
“Listen Mr,
You can’t have your cake and eat it too
You know what, fuck you
I’m outta here
I don’t want to be your Mrs
Fuck off to Geelong with your Mrs
You can have your Mrs and eat her too
We’re through!”
Revenge
(for Louise Monnington)
I want you to stop dead
at the sight of me
strutting my stuff
down Bourke street
in my purple number and stilettos
while I’m laughing and on my way
to a club with friends
come in your pants
at how fucking hot
and awesome I am
kicking yourself
at how you fucked it up
treated me like shit
lose your breath
cross the road
stop me and say ‘hi’
and I’ll be all polite
and say ‘how are you?
How you been?’
And I want you to pull
me aside, explain
that you’ve missed me
so much, beg me to
come back and I want to
laugh at how cute it all is
‘oh, sweetheart,
that’s so sweet’
and you’ll say
‘cause I miss you, babe’
and then I’ll yell
very abruptly
‘fuck you you
sleazy, two-timing
motherfucking dickhead!
I would never take
you back, you head fuck!’
And then I want to
calm down and
rub your shoulder
very sweetly
say ‘sorry’
then continue
down Bourke street
with my friends
while you stand on the
footpath, heartbroken
Fun
It’s fun not having a dick-head to stress about
not having a guy to get in a mess about
worrying if he’s gonna call or sms
just to see if he passes the test
learning some self-respect
keeping my sex for only the best
He was on a pedestal and I idolised his sound
it’s fun bringing that pedestal down
till it touches the ground
and elevating mine
all the way to the sky
to start actually using my fucking brain
laughing at how I chased you
understanding it was insane
being tired of the game
knowing that my life isn’t lame
It’s fun enjoying the simple things in life
and not being afraid of, myself
hot chocolate, DVDs, music and books
anything that doesn’t involve you
It’s fun not having you to stress about
and I’ve learnt never to allow myself
to get into a mess about
men like YOU
(to all my devoted readers, it was TOO hard to stop myself from posting poems and just putting them in cafe nova! I’ll have to put some on the blog and some in the cafe!)
Little Raven publishes my audio
Little Raven are a new publishing venture, publishers of erotic fiction and I am happy to announce that an audio poem of mine from Love and Fuck Poems, ‘You like to f**k the darkness in me’ has been published on their website. This Thursday the 8th on the 3CR spoken word program I will be interviewing Little Raven directors, Van Roberts and Yasmin Clement. The entire show will be dedicated to erotic spoken word and Little Raven will be showcasing work from some of their new writers(including me!). The show is adults only. Also on Thursday night at 7:30pm, Little Raven will be hosting their monthly event, Spin the bottle. The event is open mic and anyone can read up to 1000 words of erotic writing, but make sure you email them to get your name on the list if you want to read. It will be held at Re Vult in the city, 344 Swanston Street and I will be reading a little something myself. Hope to see you there and enjoy the audio!
Wog Woman Writer (what it’s like)
March 22, 2012 at 3:50 am (Creative commentary, Cultural writing (migrants), Poems (R rated)) (migrant writers)
On one side, the wogs:
I go to Mum’s house, proceed to proclaiming
my recent publication in a literary journal
to which she asks if I’ve vacuumed my house.
If I ask her if she’s heard me, she will respond with
details of how my divorce which took place
two years ago, ruined her life.
I leave the room but I love her.
She came on the boat
nowhere to go but marriage,
sometimes she didn’t even have food
in the village where she grew up.
On the other side, the publishing giants:
Submitting your manuscript to a publisher
Being praised for the story, well developed characters
Strong story arc, but that the manuscript lacks ‘literary merit.’
Scanning the list of contributor names to journals or
funding recipients for Arts Victoria and struggling
to find a surname that looks wog,
waiting for an incision in the Aussie literary voice
the bright light that might tear in the fabric
Blogging for a left-wing journal
finally feeling like you’re being recognised
that you’re writing is worth something
only to be sacked and amounting to nothing
but slave-labour words on a computer screen
replaced with big-shot Aussie Phd names
that you sound nothing like, and never will
(or sometimes you consider changing your voice)
explaining to Dad what happened
Dad, sitting me down comfortingly,
shaking his head and responding ‘Ithes?’ See?
‘Now I hope you think very hard
about returning to your job as a programmer.’
I lower my head
sending my ‘Wog’ YouTube video out to family,
telling them the situation, getting no response
except for one sister saying ‘I don’t do wog poems’
and asking me to take her off my email list,
loving her so much I feel her humiliation
Going to her house later in the week
where she plays me YouTube videos of
So Tiri, a Greek-American musician
rapping about feta and bread and Avgolemoni soup
who has millions of hits on his YouTube,
the sinking reality that most of my wog generation
prefer this, Wog Boy and My Big Fat Greek Wedding films
than stories revealing the shit layered under the cultural carpet
Most wogs haven’t even read Christos Tsiolkas
If they have it’s only because he made it
and therefore there must be merit, in what he has to say
Speaking my mind like a wog, my voice too raw
too confronting, too fused with emotion
I consider a Phd nightmare to flatten out my voice
but I’m stuck in single mum slum,
the odds against me because I have a cunt
and I have no trust, in the literary system, anymore
Sometimes I consider presenting myself
to the nearest publishing house,
palms pressed together as if in prayer
and asking if they please wouldn’t mind
stitching my hands shut so I can neither write nor type
(I will provide them with the needle and thread)
While the editor and publisher boil tea in preparation
I will continue to pray, for a miracle
When they return with their English china
and sympathetic faces, threading the needle
I will begin to tremble and cry
and they will comfort me
There, there, Koraly, we understand
We understand it’s been hard, it’s okay
The first stich will hurt the most, but to distract myself
I will confess to them every single rejection
as they stitch each pair of fingers together,
the hardships of having to subscribe to journals
to be considered for publication, running out of money
having less success with publication, the more confronting I get
There, there, Koraly, we understand
We’re almost done, just the pinky fingers left…
After I’m done confessing, I will recite poetry
until they’re finished and they can marvel
at my exotic verse as the blood drips from my hands
and onto the pages of their next publication
A book by Mr John Smith
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