By Lena Judith Drake
I
a naked man is a very frightening thing,
my mother says, and as for the videos,
i remember the thick black pubic hair
where a baby’s head, barely visible,
pried through;
a boy, voice squeaking, sneaking
out of his bedroom at night with piles of white sheets,
his big brother or father or uncle or the narrator of the video
a paid actor, and not very good,
stopping him and explaining ejaculation, nocturnally,
but we don’t know semen is white. the boy said alien blood,
and blood is red, isn’t it? or, alien,
green? maybe?
and does our blood, girl blood, pour out of us?
how much?
II
when i am 12, cybersex is the new thing, and when i am 12 and a half,
i lose my online virginity,
at my parents’ computer in the kitchen.
i say i am 17, in biology in a high school,
and that seems so the thing to say.
he is 16. i am the older woman.
we are writers, so we battle a sorcerer in an igloo in the winter,
and then i wear white furs, wait for him on a bed.
we have ambiguous romance novel sex, free of “cunt”s, and full of “inside”s.
we may have even married. pretty good prose
for a first time. he is probably really 16.
in the instant message box, asterisks decorating my fake name,
he asks me to be his girlfriend, then calls me a bitch.
i uninstall AIM quietly, while my parents make sandwiches.
i think he will find me; i go to the bathroom and cry.
III
first period: science class with the stoned teacher
we stand waiting in bunches and lines at the door.
i go to look, my panties coated, brown sludge.
i stare down at my underwear in disbelief
in the handicapped stall of the bathroom, like i am in kindergarten again
playing with toys for too long and accidents and hiding my tights.
and then i think, oh blood. brown blood.
there is a girl, poised, with beautiful hair, whose parents vote conservative,
and she has pads in the back pocket of her denim purse.
she gives me one. i go to dance class later,
roll around on the floor, feeling like i have a mattress between my legs,
like i have blood spotting my stretch pants.
IV
the first first time: every image is soft, the yellowed lace and lavender
in her bedroom, 15-year-old love notes with inkwell pens,
and her kissing me fiercely,
closed mouths until we try tongue, every image soft until
i pretend not to be wet, grab toilet paper from the bathroom
to wipe it up before it goes through my jeans and she knows that i want her.
even though she probably knows already,
even though i run my fingers on her spine and lower,
and leave with lips more chapped
than when i got there.
but always with clothes. i still have to hide it.
i am young.
she is a cutter, but i tell her i will never leave her, forever, ever, ever.
i go into the bathroom, shake, gag, wipe more from myself, then come back.
should we take off our shirts? i ask.
yes. it’s so soon, she says.
6 months is not very soon, i think, but i don’t say it.
areolae pale pink. should we take off our pants, too? i ask.
V
the other first time: i come because i think he’s going to come,
humping through pajama pants,
but with everything else, i’m strangely disconnected. a witness.
i am seeing a naked man, curled at the end of the bed.
it is not very frightening.
the moment the tip is inside me (his cock, my cunt, let’s not make this another romance novel)
i think to myself, i am not a virgin.
and also it only hurts a little.
and also this meijer lube sucks. profoundly, i note
it’s not very profound.
VI
two fingers all of a sudden, not one at a time,
even boys sometimes know one at a time,
she tells me i have cysts,
and also that i should stop having sex until it’s with someone special.
my mother asks later if the speculum was too big,
since i’m a virgin, for jesus, for marriage.
the gynecologist is right, at least, about the cysts.
the day before thanksgiving, two hour cramps stab-shuttling to my brain,
i puke up something orange in the wicker wastebasket,
and it makes my tooth enamel squeaky.
the clot-rope sludging out of my cunt,
the trickles of blood sliding down like firemen
all dressed in bright red, palms to the pole, uterus clenching.
VII
it’s comforting,
coming from missionary, or with his thumb while i’m on top,
socks still on, a bag of jalapeno chips by the bed where we plant our tissues
after we blow our noses.
we talk statistical illiteracy,
while he re-names both of my breasts, with permission.
i am saying things i haven’t said in a long time,
things like “in love”, except i don’t shake as much, or at all.
my legs are unshaved and scabless
when the planned parenthood nurse practictioner
tells me my vulva is beautiful, but my cervix is gorgeous.
the pills are small enough to slip through my teeth,
but i haven’t forgotten any yet.
i soak in cold, wash in warm, when the blood comes out of me.
my fingers are telling you this story, because they’ve touched,
because they know
Lena is a 20-year-old bisexual woman.