::07:31:08::

::: pornography :::

I never thought we ought to get married in the daylight,
or when swallowing your thoughts on Nietzsche
who seems like a downer and an asshole to me.
I would have submitted to be my wishes and left
if I hadn’t been looking forward to what happens next.
I was in jail all my clothes were striped
I might have been stripped..
It might have been pornography.

We all sat in the basement watching pornography
before you reappeared. Megan with her laugh
that made us laugh threw her arms around James,
who I never liked until you came back and taught me
to accept assholes you should be avoided..
I imagine they went back to his place tried them out,
the positions that is, while Lisa and I went to our places
wondering who would fill the other sides.
When we watched, in all honesty
it felt like reading my sister’s diary
back when she hated me
then tucking it under her bed on the wrong side.

That next time back you asked me,
I said sure, wondered how awkward it would be:
you and me sipping coffee again.
Once I mentioned Foucault and you mentioned Freud.
As far as I know Lacan and Dostoevsky
with their espressos were there too
scowling because we pretended to know them.
I looked over my shoulder and whispered
one day we’ll really understand or lose interest,
either way we’re young so let it slide. So they let it slide.
It wasn’t awkward at all, but how heaven might be.

What a habit of in out in.
I began wearing sheepskin to cover the baby.
I wasn’t pregnant. I only mean I was a still a baby
I didn’t secretly think we could get married
or live together and make a name for ourselves
or at least a home. You were wise, but now
you might love your gray hair that I loved so much.
I joked when I said let’s make pornography
but not that sometimes - when we were among your friends
who are intellectuals - you played devil’s advocate so well
I almost gave in it felt so damn good to be humbled.

What if nobody looks back the way you did?
Not even Nietzsche who would have thrown a brick
at me for looking so miserable and weak or Freud
who would say I’m compensating. In all honesty,
the pornography is more like reality - minus the cameras,
the scripted climax the payroll and everybody
looking satisfied in front of the scenes.
What do I give a damn what’s behind them,
or if you really love me like you say.
The one thing I do know -

I think about your separate life, I imagine you are free.
It wasn’t their philosophies that suffocated me.

Written by: ~ Becca Fishow