I love the exercise of writing poetry to a prompt. It stretches me as a writer to have to work within someone else's confines. This month's writing prompt at Poets Online was as challenging as it was interesting: write a poem about sex, using tweet-like stanzas of fewer than 140 characters. That's it.
So, with a blush and a sigh, I offer you this month's post.
Your Name Is an L Word
I really, really didn't know what I was doing, all those years and all those climaxes ago. Never mind the virginity. It was intentional.
Yes. I had decided to bottle all of it and save it for you. Every last drop. Every once in a while, we uncorked it and tasted a little.
Scary how it almost consumed us, those few little drops. It was sweet and savage and I knew it would be the death of me. In the best way,
like she said as she sang about the dark and wonderful unknown. It *was* wonderful, this unknown passion that threatened to undo me
and send me careening. There came that point that the wine tastings of the future glory were too much for me. Drunk on you. Drunk
on the need. The craving that was most certainly going to eat me alive--or at least my resolve--was staring me down. I wanted it to win so bad
I could taste it... but I corked it back up and I made it wait. Starved it for a while, to make it hungrier and hungrier.
They called it old-fashioned, and truly it was, for who waits for this sacred moment anymore? I felt it in my throat. The longing. I felt it
in my gut, the aching need. I became aware of words like "loins" because I needed a word for it. Such a good Bible word
for the good Bible girl. Longing and loins and lovers. Luscious L words.
Lingering. All the waiting had made you patient. When the day finally came and the dam finally broke, you were ready
to wait a little bit longer. Just long enough to play skillfully and work wonders, without any training save a book and a song. We learned
together, those many romps ago. Your fingers worked me like they do that guitar, and I could barely breathe from the desperate hunger of it
all. Craving. One flesh. I consumed you, and you filled me, and it was unspeakably worth the wait. Every. Single. Time.
Who knew it could be new every time, and that every time would be my favorite? The years are swirling, and the taut flesh is aging,
and the guitar fingers ache a little in the morning
. But you're still the best thing I ever tasted, and I'm still so glad it's been you.
Only you.
© 2014 Laurie Sitterding
Listen to Ingrid Michaelaon's "Wonderful Unknown"
