Eggs for Sale

Time and time again he whispered into my ear and tugged on the loops of my jeans.

“I want to give you a baby.”

The driving force of growing into your thirties has its perks, but the craving of a child is unstoppable and at most times inconvenient.

I’m not sure what led to our passion that night, but it was sexy; the kind you read about in books and tighten your legs to during movies.

Hands: everywhere.

Bodies covered in salted steam, hips swinging from the pendulum of momentum.

The release of him into me was enough to remind me what I was after. I absorbed his sperm with my subconscious like a mushroom blooming in the dark.

Babies.

I held him there, refusing to let him slip away.

All that was wrong would be wrong again.

You see, we were no longer dating. We hadn’t been for months. But as you age, you see yourself very differently alone. There’s a sudden need for routine; a craving for the familiar. One thing was for certain: I wasn’t curious anymore. I’d been with many men, hardly one more surprising than the next. And it wasn’t the need for sex. Sex was more laborious than ever and I was aging. Twisting the skin on your neck and near your underarms is enough to make someone reevaluate habits and reaffirm self-doubt. One thing is for certain, if you are aging, so are your eggs.

Many times over the past few months I had decided I might be alone and old forever. Selfishly, no one to give me the gift I desired most; to create a life.

All I once I sat up in the bed and coughed to release his life from entering mine.

Is this what I have come to? Hormones become a Human?

My not-yet-thirty year-old body is not yet ready to be responsible for the passion of a one-night stand with an exhausted lover!

 

…But maybe tomorrow.

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Meditation

I stare among the women in crossed-legged seated postures and wonder if I’ll ever get there. Smiles strung along their faces. They’ve made it. They have found some place to call home. They pull love and compassion from places I’ve never heard of; from some chakra of the month. I still pull my tears back. The only colorful line up are my excel spreadsheets during fundraising campaigns and no one seems to care how long I haven’t been smiling. Breathe. Count to three. Allow the inner critic to wash away. I need more inner goddess, that’s for sure. Do you get that from kombucha? Taking pictures in a yoga pose? Can you see me now? Calling for help. Breathe. Maybe I’m just jealous of all the love they seem to receive. An internal healing from tailbone to sun salutations. I wish there was a bandaid big enough to cover the wounds I have. The sands of time have only stung like salt ripe on my flesh. “Moving forward” was silly advice. I now exhale my problems onto the next person. Deep, cursed excerpts of my ode to humanity and love and family and relationships and him and… breathe. I guess maybe I am jealous of those smiles stretched across their faces. And maybe… just maybe, I’ll find my own love in my crossed-legged meditation too.

A Moment

Forgive me.

I left chocolate ice cream stains beneath your chin.

I wanted to indulge in your young soul for a moment more than socially appropriate.

A precious memory to be sewn into my long term and yours for the time being.

Over time you have retreated; waning your womanly characteristics into the child your mother must have known.

In a bittersweet, didactic daydream, I connect with your mother. I washed your hands and cleaned your face with the napkin.

At this moment I know I have exactly four minutes to collect.

To learn the fast facts of your history, ancestory, and memories, before the reset button functions without fail.

One moment to use the tongue your mother bestowed because you forgot the one handed to you in school. Tell me of the mallet that whipped a whisper.

Lend me one moment to tell me of the time you left your future husband on his knees for weeks, begging for your hand to please.

And let me steal a moment to remember when you found religion at the bottom of a sack of carrot seeds; hands blistered by the weeds and threw care to the breeze.

Lend me a moment more to collect these memories so that I may be a record for the family of the grandmother who lived in the moment

Because that’s all that ever existed.

The Culture of My Men

You are not from the culture of my men.

You have charm that does not whistle or honk at my features. Instead, you praise the thickness of my thighs with a poem from your own lips.

You do not attempt to impress my father by talking sports. Instead, you listen to him complain about work and prompt him to persist in venting; remembering every detail.

You do not pick the pieces of my broken life and judge their placement. Instead, you have allowed all those experiences to be everything you love about me.

You do not dare bother with other guys in my life, as if they mean to hurt us. Instead, you embrace my personality and encourage human connection.

You welcome every one with a handshake and a thank you, pridefully practicing a language foreign and unnatural to your lips. 

You are not entertained by the simple minded, yet care for all the simple pleasure. You stare into the silence and do not dare interrupt it.

You have eyes that split into rays of the sun. Colors that grasp for my brown and highlight your hazel. Laugh lines that could hold fields of flowers. A toothy grin with a suspect of suspense, while you suckle on your bottom lip. Cheeks that have seen repair. Ears that have heard beats of a busted drum. Thin cookie-colored hair that toasted perfectly in your mother’s womb. And a thin frame, not muscular enough to be manly, too tall to be usual, too light to be Latino, but beautiful; so beautiful. And yet not… not of the culture of my men.

Secret Affair

The night that we shared cannot be replaced.

A hiccup in time, a change of our fate

A secret affair that I cannot face.

 

We met at the party and had some drinks

I had grazed your body, then held your cheek.

The night that we shared cannot be replaced.

 

We exchanged numbers and laughed at others

I felt a connection, but was it real?

A secret affair that I cannot face.

 

Your body, your touch, the sensation I felt

At three in the morning our bodies raced.

The night that we shared cannot be replaced.

 

A passion never to be felt again.

Oh, your kiss! How I wish this were all real!

A secret affair that I cannot face.

 

I leave in the morning, before dawn speaks

Go down the stairs and head back to my place.

The night that we shared cannot be replaced

A secret affair that I cannot face.

She Sees Beauty

She is the thrift store painting of the flowers in a cup. You’ve seen her pull them on your walks. Her eyes light up and she reaches for the mundane but picks peculiar. She sees heaven in her flower and hands it to you. And now that she has seen your soul, she paints it brighter than you’ve ever known.