according to my calendar I’m on day horny-as-fuck of my menstrual cycle, but I didn’t need to look at the calendar to know that

I woke up wet and craving touch,
craving cock,
and that hasn’t changed all day

the problem with sharing a house and being in lockdown
– being in lockdown and celibate, lockdown and lover-less –
is that there’s no alone time, no privacy to masturbate
unless I wait for the 12 to 13 minutes
when they’re in the shower
and I can hope that the water will
drown out my loudnesses

the good thing about being in lockdown
is that I can resist the urge to rejoin Tinder
where I’d just be reminded of how most men there
aren’t worthy of being an attendee to my body’s needs
so I wouldn’t get laid anyway

I decided to go for my late-night walk
and checked the weather forecast which said
there was a 7% chance of rain in the next hour
so I took an umbrella with me – just in case! –
and halfway through my walk there was a rainstorm
and I yelled 7 fucking percent! at the sky
which clearly hadn’t looked at the weather forecast

by the time I got home my feet were wet
and my shins were wet
and my calves were wet
and my knees were wet
and my thighs were cold but dry
and my pussy was still so very wet

my upper body was dry and moderately warm

tomorrow I’ll wake up horny-as-fuck again
and I’ll press my inner thighs together throughout the day
and grind up on anything near me,
and the day after that I’ll be at normal levels of horny
with minor fluctuations up and down,
waiting for my daily 12 to 13 minutes of privacy,
and then during those 12 to 13 minutes telling myself
don’t think about the time, there’s no pressure
but I know that I won’t stop thinking about the time,
that there’s all the pressure in the world inside me,
and still I’m left wet and craving

Paula Harris lives in New Zealand, where she writes poems and sleeps in a lot, because that's what depression makes you do. She won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award, and her chapbook "i make men like you die sweetly" will be published in September 2019 by dancing girl press. Her poetry has been published in various journals, including Berfrois, Poetry NZ Yearbook, SWWIM, Glass, The Spinoff and Landfall. She is extremely fond of dark chocolate, shoes and hoarding fabric, and tweets randomly at @paulaoffkilter.