purple spills from my nose, seeps into my sheets, drips onto my floor. if i wake & only half my skin is purpled, i must purple-smear my other half: eyeshadow, glitter, two-week old blueberries from the fridge—i can’t be some, i have to be all; my mother e-bay-bids on shoes & clothes, adds to her closets’ spills; my grandmother eats & eats if her first, second, or third breakfast doesn’t satisfy; my great-grandmother sucked iced-tea sweetened by sugar cubes through a straw into the right side of her mouth until all her teeth rotted & she switched to the left—a prayer to symmetry. the women in my family are prey to excess. i pray to raise my children differently than my mother raised me: if you put one toe in the road, i’m carrying you inside. toddler-me touched foot to pavement. my mother thrust her hands into my armpits & took me inside as i cried & cried. her hardness sandpapered my youth, but taught me to draw taut my adult limits; on first encounters i say: we can make out, you can take off my bra, but anything below-waist is off-limits. i broke my own rules the night i met a couple in a bar & they asked if i wanted to mount my unicorn & gallop the glittering trail to my first threesome. how could i say no to two people eating my pussy in tandem, two tongues filled with me? my attraction isn’t limited by gender but sparked by rapport; poet who says i’m the sparkle in her soul & i talk about gertrude stein & celebrate white space & despite her disinterest in me that way, i’m off-balance with lust imaging licking her nipples until she begs me to run my tongue along the horizon of her pubic hair—but i must find my balance; i can’t risk falling onto the endless conveyor belt of my fantasies.
Raina K. Puels leaves a trail of glitter, cat hair, and small purple objects everywhere she goes. She's is an MFA candidate at Emerson College and the Editor-in-Chief of Redivider. You can read her in (b)OINK, Sidereal, Occulum, and forthcoming in The American Literary Review. See her full list of pubs: rainakpuels.com. Tweet her: @rainakpuels.
Gem Blackthorn is QMT's Sex Columnist, and the author/curator of Lust Thrust Thursdays. Send her your submissions and questions at sexsexsex [at] queenmobs.com Image by c. rachel