I Can’t Stop Sexting You
By Ari Eastman
You casually mention a line from a poem I wrote what now feels
like decades ago,
if actually only a year.
Too many words exist at this point to always remember.
Too many times I’ve been convinced this
was it,
this was worth cementing.
You say, “Do you feel that way about me?”
in reference to the line –
something about my hungry mouth and how I kept
hoping to quench my thirst with a man
who tasted more like whiskey
than water.
I know you’re asking if I want you like that,
you want confirmation that my orgasms with you
are better than any I’ve described before,
want to know if I write poetry
or touch myself
at your very thought.
I say no.
Because you don’t have to know
just yet.
Because there are few things I still have
to keep private,
to save for just me.
Right now, you are the boy who arches my back
and whispers things I’d be embarrassed
to say when the sun comes up.
Right now, you don’t have to know the way my shower
becomes a sanctuary
and you are the only one I allow
to enter something so sacred.
I am raining for you
and only you.
You want an image and I can’t decide
if I should send you my body or my wanting,
that every time you reach your fingers
towards me,
I suddenly understand what it means to hear color,
that sound has flavor,
that touch can be seen.
You say, “I want you to write about me.”
But Baby,
can’t you see?
I am penning you in my skin
constantly.