when I was fucking a lot of men when I was 19 and 20 (and 18, and 21) I was fully aware that it was partly because I love sex and partly because–having grown up being told I am unlovable–I crave that feeling of being wanted, even for a few hours

by Paula Harris

Honorable Mention, Neutrino Short-Short Prize, selected by jj peña

someone did a poll on twitter and 70% of people who responded said they would have sex with someone again even if the first time the sex had been bad, and I was definitely not one of the 70% because if our combined skills and chemistry the first time aren’t at least getting the sex to a solid average, then I don’t want to risk my time on more of the bad same.

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I am fully aware that I’m not great at relationships and sex is easier, but then I had an ileostomy and not many people want a casual fuck with someone with a messed up body, a messed up body where you have to deal with someone carrying their literal shit in a bag on the front of their body even if you can’t see what’s in the bag, and so when I met him and he could look at my body and still get his dick up I was like sure, fine, the sex is bad but this is all I can get so this will do – bad as in even worse than the basketball player who was so drunk that he fell asleep on me partway through and semi-crushed me and it took me nearly ten minutes to escape from underneath his weight – and he thought it was the best sex ever but that’s because he was understandably pussy struck and also barely beyond being a virgin, despite being 26. and I was 30 and so deeply tired of always being alone.

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and my friends all assumed that the sex must be great because even without saying anything I am apparently a woman who would be unwilling to tolerate bad sex, they never asked how I was really feeling, so none of them said to me that it was okay if I was single and unlovable forever, none of them said hey, let’s go shopping and buy you a new vibrator or two and then you’ll be closer to being okay enough even though it’ll still be tough and you’ll still be alone.

maybe they could’ve pooled their money and gotten me a sex worker for my birthday each year.

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I am not good at upskilling men who are virgins or barely beyond being virgins – apologies to the women who they fuck after me, it’s just not something I’m good at teaching – so I can get them up to technically correct sex, which means that orgasms are had by all, but it won’t be interesting, they will never learn to be aware of their own bodies and how to hold their own weight and instead they’ll crush your ribs a little, they will always make that pitched sound when they come that sounds like they’ve just had their first ever orgasm and that high pitch makes me cringe.

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when I was 45 and with someone who always looked at me like I was the best thing in the room – and if you’ve read my poems before, you know that I mean Rawiri – and no one had ever done that before, no one had looked at me like that before, even when I was 100% the best pussy in the room, and the sex started off solidly just above average and then became genuinely spectacular, and I felt sad for how I had told myself being unhappy and not alone was the best option I could ever expect, I felt sad that no one had saved me from the bad decisions my unlovableness led me to, because sometimes you can’t save yourself, sometimes you need someone else to guide you out and tell you just fuck people, don’t go looking for love because—I’m sorry—but that’s not for you.

that stupid thing that people say that sounds deep and smart and uplifting, you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you, they’re wrong, some of us need someone else to love us to show us that we can be loved, to teach us how to love ourselves by letting us copy them, and I’m not lovable or fuckable but I can write a poem and that isn’t enough but it’s all I’ve got.

Paula Harris lives in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where she writes and sleeps in a lot, because that’s what depression makes you do. She won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award. Her writing has been published in various journals, including The Sun, Prelude, New Ohio Review, and Aotearotica. She is extremely fond of dark chocolate, shoes and hoarding fabric. website: www.paulaharris.co.nz | Twitter: @paulaoffkilter | Instagram: @paulaharris_poet | Facebook: @paulaharcollinrispoet