In kindergarten, you had a boyfriend, who sat on the bus next to you and held your hand
He kissed you on the cheek and you kissed him back,
Wondering why all the other kids were laughing
You told your mom and she said, save that for someone special instead!
Every book you read from the age of 10 had one time the characters went to bed
And it seemed a little wrong and went on a little too long
Yet you sat there unblinking
Always thinking
Why is there so much detail?
Not knowing it was bad until your Dad saw your purchases from the Kindle Store
You haven’t seen the kindle since
Then came the videos, you know the ones I mean.
Year after year until the end of middle school
Talking about the urges you’re supposed to be feeling
And if you have it’s only natural
You’re becoming an adult.
You’ve had crushes before, sure but not because you wanted to get in someone’s pants
You wanted the storybook romance
The cuddles the gifts, someone to listen
To give you chance
For every time you said someone was hot
you never thought it was because you wanted to smash your bodies together
hot and heavy
For every time you watch tv and the characters have time for a sex scene
In between the monsters and alternate realities
Health classes roll around
It’s Co-Ed
Boys acting like asses
Nicknames fly left and right for body parts you haven’t even thought about since the videos
Or from your long lost Kindle
You sit there for an hour
Listening to a dude in baggy shorts telling you about all the diseases with visual aides
Your friends say they still can’t wait, and apparently they don’t
Every day you see new rings on fingers and hands cradling a bump.
The same girls who struggled next to you in that same class,
as we stretched condoms over bananas
We’d later eat with lunch
Then the doctors ask you to pee on a stick anytime they want to stitch you
Because there’s absolutely no way you haven’t
because well
Your age
Your gender
And not to mention you’re away from the parents now
You refuse to pee
not because you’re worried
But you just can’t go on command
Then the doctors ask you to pee on a stick anytime they want to stitch you
Because there’s absolutely no way you haven’t
because well
Your age
Your gender
And not to mention you’re away from the parents now
You refuse to pee
not because you’re worried
But you just can’t go on command
They have your mom leave the room and get real close to you
I know you’re on birth control, they whisper, like it’s a secret, like there are no other reasons
except the creation of life.
You want to scream.
Have you ever had to open a pad with fingers that barely work to hold a pencil?
Because I tried.
Have you ever worried about going to the bathroom to change a pad knowing it will take you at
least fifteen minutes and another person to help you to do so?
Because I did for two and a half years.
You look at this doctor, knowing full well that they have never been in room with a thirteen year
old who needs help pulling down their pants
You know full well that they have never had to look at someone’s exposed vagina
Dripping with blood, stuck to the pad, and never had to reach their hand in and pry it off the
patch of hair that is just barely growing there
Like your mom and the random strangers you hired to help you have had to.
But they don’t have time to hear about that.
you laugh and say my last period was two years ago
They look bewildered and call your mom back in
Once they confirm, they insist I must tell them when I become sexually active.
When.
As if it is inevitable.
As if I have no power to resist it.
From the time you were little you were told that eventually you’ll feel the need too.
Your parents say its the right person
Your siblings say its the right moment
But the waiting doesn’t bother you
They never tell you that there are other kinds of attraction
There’s more than just the lust in sexual, although people emphasize the HETERO in
heterosexual without thinking that by definition the second half involves S-E-X
Since none of our Mr. /Mrs. Jim Johnson’s of the world with their infinite knowledge of balls
Felt inclined to share, I’ll be the one:
There’s Sensual when you just wish to cuddle and kiss but it’s no fun for society if you don’t
show skin
There’s romantic where you just want a person to share cheesy holidays with and to eventually
meet your parents and maybe wear black when you wear white
Just without all the jokes about that coming night
We’ve all heard Platonic before,
but never Aesthetic, because you shouldn’t want to look and not touch,
They never tell you about other kinds of attraction, just the large consequences of very little
action
They just tell you that boys are a distraction
I spell the word sex above in the same way my mother would
As if there was a child in the room
As if saying sex would suddenly turn babies into horny teens
Even now, typing it, I am conscious of the weight of the three keys as I press them.
Stupid society, putting a weight on a word that doesn’t even matter.
There is not a fear of sex.
It is just a lack of want for sex or lack of only sexual attraction.
There’s a difference between the two that few recognize.
Not Society. Not the Doctors. Not Family. Possibly Not future Partners
But remember:
You’re the Ace up your sleeve, hiding in plain sight.
Maria Sekte is a poet and an aspiring author, using her work to advocate for the representation of disabilities to go beyond the one-dimensional stories she grew up with. With her B.A. in English, she hopes to create a space where people can escape and exist, without being questioned, somewhere they can lift their burdens and enjoy life.
