Les femme

JAMIE WATSON

On the first date, you kissed that theatrical drama club girl beneath the canopy of your mother’s swing set in a way she never thought she would let herself be kissed by a man with hair on his face, a man who looked like a skinny lumberjack and could shred his guitar like love letters from a disembodied youth.

Her youth didn't occur to you that night, or any night.

Lying on your back under a bed of hazy Arizona starlight, she was fifteen and you were about to turn twenty, and in the moment that seemed all right because she was smart enough to know she loved you.

So when she told you, she didn't want to kiss that way anymore, with the slippery slope of your mouth invading hers, you held her chin in your hand and turned her about like a plump piece of fruit and told her she was cute.

When she told you, at fifteen years old, that sex was disgusting, you took it as a challenge, because every boy loves a challenge.

You were fine with her kissing other girls.

I mean what’s a girl to a girl, when she has a top score guitar hero to guard the closet door and make sure nothing gets in? Or out?

You tried your best to keep her protected, you tried so hard to make your motives go undetected for her sake because if you ever found the guy that did what you wanted to do with her, you’d kill him.

And what a sad situation it was for you, when she started to fill things in.

How she ripped into you, how bad it must have hurt when she got on top and kissed you the way you kissed her the way she kissed those other girls.

Poor thing.

How dare she raise questions when all she needs to know are the bumby bits of your body, how dare she sail her vessel with ideas instead of sinking into your bedsheets, how dare she skim her pocket stones when all you really want is to bone, how dare a girl love herself more than she loved your cock?

You poor, poor boy.

You had to be the judge, and the defendant.

You had to learn how to put up a fight and be independent because she was so manipulative.

She only looked like a little girl, she told you she wanted it.

How dare she lie for your sake?

Now she creates her own warmth at night in her bed. She can take off her dick when she needs to think with her head and she has girls spinning to know her name so they know what to say when they reach the edge of an uncovered tenderness, of real bouts of laughter that start from the inside out, of freshness and favors.

Of sun-buttered kisses that promise more than just an orgasm.

I hope that you fall in love with more than just your reflection,

I hope the girl who hops stages with you doesn't need your protection,

I hope you can peel away your armor and stop trying to be a knight because someday, you’re going to have to learn,

Girls don’t need your permission to be all right.