The problems with having a nano-micro-blog on a system that requires social activity are great in number. It is almost as if I am required, by law, to follow every student with a blog on the same system that goes to this school. However, I don’t for good reason. Unfortunately, I do follow a blog written by a flake of a boy that I believed I had feelings for back in December. As it turned out, I wasn’t right for him because I played coy, hard to get, and took it slow. I wanted a relationship with him so I held back. My endeavors proved to be the opposite of what he was looking for in a boyfriend; he wanted a guy to lay it all out on the table and provide for his sexual appetite. An appetite I had no idea existed until after all was said, nothing was done, and we had packed up and seen each other much less frequently. I am glad that this all happened, however, because I later learned through second-hand mentions that he was a bit off and was often seen around town with a new boy each week. Though the details of the relationships are fairly discreet, it was still disheartening to see such cycles.

His blog, updated only moments ago, hosts a post with a toast to his first kiss. In it, he claims that his first kiss was a year ago today.

This bit of news frustrates me more than our minor blip on the radar did over the past few months. From having had no sexual experience until he was ready to ship off to college, to what he is today isn’t entirely unfathomable, not disappointing, but strangely bizarre if only because I believed he was ‘different from the rest’. Maybe what I find strange is my finding it strange.

No, I’m not in an emotional huff because of this. No, I don’t have feelings for him anymore. The reason that I am posting to this forum is to ask a few questions on the matter.

Is it not entirely odd that he remembers the exact day of his first kiss? Am I alone in finding this strange? I definitely remember my first kiss. The beginning of summertime in June of 2006. The arms of a college boy long-forgotten around my shoulders. Having to sneak out of my house only to sit on the top of a small city made of ladders and platforms and slides and poles at a children’s park a block away. The stars and moon shone so clearly in the sky but were often blockaded by small, threatening rain clouds. Shivering from cold in a pair of shorts. My back to his chest and the awkward turn of my neck to move to his lips. Questions attacking my head about what to do. Letting him take control because he had been there before. Being careful not to aggravate his mouth with my teeth. Holding back my tongue until his had entered my own lips. The dryness of it all. The quenching of a sexuality I had only thoughts of prior to my experience. The quickness of such feelings and the lasting awkwardness and unsure words that surrounded my lips thereafter. But what day was it? Should I really care?

Do any of you remember the exact day of your first kiss? Do some of you not remember the kiss in the slightest?

After she gets off work,
we sit in a hookah bar late into the night.
Smoking cigarettes.
It’s redundant,
but it’s all for the experience.

She talks a lot
about her business in selling
the goods
the green, the weed.
I haven’t the heart.
She smokes up only to test
the sensation,
the new product.

It’s lucrative.

I haven’t told her
about my business.
Call boy: sex for money.
Everyone should try it at least once.
Not just men, but women too.
It’s an intimidating product to sell
when it comes to men,
to the kind of people you like.
Fear of inadequacy.
Fear of getting caught in the moment.

Selling to women, to strangers,

it’s easy.

Pop a viagra,
never be under the influence,
charm is more important than sex,
the product is just a product.
Give them the strength,
give them the high,

they’ve never experienced at home.

With men,
with friends,

it jeopardizes your feelings.

If you let it.

It’s just a business,
and I’m damn good at making money
without being a client.

____________________________________________________

So I hope you read the whole thing before scrolling down to check out what I have to say. (Actually, I’ll be grateful if you’ve read the thing entirely anyway.)

I know it’s sort of not kosher to have to explain your writing, but I feel as though there are so many different ways to look at what I was trying to accomplish here. Most of you probably thought I was just spouting off random shit about man-whores and drug dealers, which I was.

But try looking at it this way: the first line and every other line in the stanzas can be read as what the speaker is thinking to himself while all the alternating lines are what his drug dealer friend is actually saying to him over a cigarette. The first stanza more aptly speaks for both of them in revealing the setting, but this rule can be applied to it as well.

As for the solitary lines and the final stanza, they speak for both the speaker and his friend.

I’m sure this prose-poem will be longer when I actually work on it, but I thought it was worth posting as a draft still.

-CJ

P.S. I know Tumblr is the sort of website where the “tl;dr” syndrome affects a majority of the population, but I enjoy reading everyone’s microblogging and blurbs; I just don’t seem to fit into that equation so well. What I’m attempting to say is that I appreciate my few followers and their reading my writings.

Thanks everyone.

Hopefully I can answer them without compromising myself. I’ve allowed anonymity because I feel it’s only fair if I’m using a pseudonym.

-CJ

P.S. Expect another draft appearing on your dashboards tonight. I haven’t found the right way to rewrite my last one and I have more things to scribble down before they’re gone anyway.

My pen name is CJ and that’s pretty much all you’re going to know about me. Don’t worry, you’ll find out more through the intimacy of my poems. I hope you enjoy them and have the balls to write something of your own and submit it to this website.

If you’d rather submit an anonymous poem, then e-mail me through dreamcompactor@hotmail.com.

I’m not a writer, but I enjoy the art of poetry and how lax it is. Maybe what I’m writing isn’t even poetry, maybe it’s just words scribbled in a notebook and then sent to Tumblr. Whatever it is I’m doing, I hope you like it.

It’s not “I always want what I can’t have.”

Never.

It always ends up being “I want it until I can have it.” From the outside it just looks like I lust for what bores me.

“No, it’s fine. I’m not worried about getting off. I want you to, though.” Validation without reward.

I could’ve come on his chest. Explored and conquered. Left not just marks on him but an indelible sensation, a memory that couldn’t be wiped off with a towel.

I didn’t.

But did I do it to keep power on my hand, on my lips, between my legs? Or was I afraid of ruining things?

I didn’t ruin anything. Instead I just left mystery; the only right way to end up back there.

Foresight would have that I don’t care to return.

Hindsight would say the same.

But present-talk wants to lay there again.

I can get anything (in this realm) if I tried. But I just take what’s offered with disregard of my own plans.

“This is all going to be temporary.”

And then I fret. “It’s not lasting!” “I’m not asked to return!” “I did so well for nothing!”

Take opportunity, but don’t risk it.

That goes no where; leads to more fret.

I become obnoxious after being something noxious to him.

I ruin it, but I blame it on circumstance of my own doings. Blame it on clouded quick-thinking, but primed and practiced quick-thinking isn’t such any longer.

I should’ve come.

I want to sweep up the next one to repay my dues to the last.

This will put me in the same ship in a different sea.

Play with him.

Toy with him.

Hate him.

Then have your way with him. Call him in the afternoon.

Things might return and last, but don’t come on his chest.

And he said these things to you.

Things you want to tattoo to your torso in Helvetica of all things.

You never want to wash your mouth again.

The next time you come, it’s going to be on him.

________________________________________________________

This ‘poem’ is definitely going to be reworked, but I needed something to put on this blog. I’ll post a finished version when I get around to it. In the meantime, more drafts to come. Don’t forget that you can submit your own poems!

-CJ