U EVER WANNA PLATONICALLY EAT SOMEONE’S PUSSY SO THEY’LL KNOW WHAT AN ORGASM FEELS LIKE & LEAVE THEIR BOYFRIEND ALREADY
after olivia gatwood’s viral tweet, 2019
send me your masturbation poem, caitlin, tell me how you bruised your knees, zane. don’t be weird — this is not a story in which i fuck my friends, but i am eager to crawl into bed with them. to talk about how sex is kinda weird, when you think about it, and how bodies are also pretty weird, if you think about it, and how sometimes, it feels weird to even have a body at all. once, clara asked to see my tits and i just simply showed her. kayla and i changed with open doors because we’ve seen it all before. the five of us started by stripping in front of the zoom camera every tuesday night, timer set to ten minutes to write poems about how they cried after their boyfriend ate their pussy or how they skipped breakfast all last week, or how they miss their mother, or how they can’t even talk about this intimacy stuff without their veins trying to asphyxiate. babes! let’s go skinny dipping this summer in the hot tub if you’re okay with seeing my thigh scars. clara, caitlin wants to know if you can braid her hair again. maybe a walk later. how about a nap. want to take a break? let’s regroup when we have the space for each other. don’t feel bad for keeping distance. don’t feel shame for wanting more. it’s okay. you’re safe. how does that feel? does that feel good? breathe. i’m here. we’re all here. does it feel different? to finally do this with someone who loves you, too?
Ari B. Cofer (she/they) is a poet, writer, and author of Paper Girl and the Knives That Made Her and Unfold: Poetry and Prose (Central Avenue Publishing). Her poetic focus centers on mental health advocacy.