I’m Done Accepting Love From Men Who Only Want Me On Saturday Nights

I was 14…

Fondling the lobes of my freshly shaved skin with your dirty fingernails. You tried to tell me it was okay.

But I wasn’t a woman yet.

I was still a girl who didn’t understand the sensuality of my pubic hair, but who had enough sense to ask you to stop.

And you listened.

I shook around, drunkenly brazen at parties.

Hoping someone would show me the love I longed for.

But instead I accepted the love that was not worthy of me..

Broken hearts and bloody thighs,

Whispered promises of intimacy carried on the backs of lonely boys.

Boys who would laugh with me and talk philosophy in the dark,

But who left when the sun came up.

I fell in love every Saturday night,

And by Monday I was alone again.

Sometimes they would weave silk threads between my ribs,

Let me think that someday, if I played my cards right, they might love me.

Just so it was okay for them to fuck me when they felt like it.

20…

Making out with married men in the back of taxi cabs.

Jaded.

Maybe this will be enough.

Maybe I can go on playing house every Saturday night,

Creating daydreams of holding your hand as we walk down by the Harbour.

But you only called after 11 PM.

Each night promised a new possibility.

Maybe this time,

Maybe this guy.

But it was never going to be any of them,

The night creatures.

It was me.

All along.

So at 24 when I kiss myself gently on the forehead, singing lullabies to the stillness,

I accept the love I know I deserve.

He sighs gently in the down covers beside me,

As in love with me as I am.