my loneliness is killing me
if my mother sneaks a box of valentine’s day candy into my purse while i am in the bathroom, then the jig is up. lemon drop edibles, pomegranate gummy edibles, coconut oil, a leather flogger. at christmas, i pull a bottle opener from my purse. do you carry that with you all the time? it is for my hotel room, in case i want a bottle of wine while watching dexter. instead, i buy a twist-off handle of jose cuervo ready-to-drink margaritas. the hotel room has a bottle opener. will it nag me for adhering to the boy scout motto? is this hotel room my mother—naïve yet afraid to seem lacking? my mother says the faux mink lashes I amazoned outmatch her lash extensions. she used to tell people her eyelashes grew from using latisse eyedrops meant for patients with glaucoma. the commemorative shirt would say, “i have glaucoma & all i got were these long-ass lashes.” my mother’s idea of reparations is telling white people her crochet braids took twenty-four hours instead of four. she swears I have a date (in!this!pandemic‽). the makeup is for sexting faux-alpha doms modeling themselves after captive wolves. the daddies flood my inbox; they never call me “mistress.” the gummies make my toys feel like a person’s touch. when I’m high, i command attention in velvet & lace. when I’m sober, i block breeders who want to chain me up on a ranch with other “females”—perpetually pregnant, unwilling to say no.
|