Akrasia

or mine?

  Fine. My penis

  Yes?

  My penis is almost

  like the best dildo

  you could imagine.

  Haha. Yes,

  just like we said it was.

  :-)

  You are surprised

  because it feels almost a

  whole half-centimeter

  longer than it was last time.

  I shaved my

  pubic hair so it can go

  in easier just that little

  bit farther.

  haha

  :-)

  And we do it on the

  ground like animals.

  Or like mechanized

  manikins fucking. Puppets

  with unseen hands commanding us

  to bash each other nuts.

  Everything about you is soft

  But with an inner firmness that

  comes alive when our bodies

  work together.

  First in concert.

  Then in discord.

  First in consort.

  Then in discert.

  Then we have dessert.

  First in a hot desert.

  Then on top of my dissertation.

  Never we will desert each other

  before the time is right.

  At nightfall we break each other

  only to grow back again stronger.

  Our bodies were made for

  ramming into each other

  like this.

  A squeeze.

  A rubbing.

  A pounding.

  And a kiss.

  After we kiss sometimes

  it feels like there’s liquid

  silver on our lips,

  or cool mercury rolling

  around wanting more.

  I aspire to be your imitation

  dildo for you honey always.

  I aspire to be something like

  what you called me.

  A manikin or whatever.

  A high-tech sex robot.

  The most sophisticated,

  talented, impressive,

  witty and self-assured.

  haha

  You set the scene, love,

  never let silence set in.

  The funny, cute things you say.

  You called it ‘chattering’,

  now say its flattering.

  What’s gotten in you today? ;)

  Lovable hobbies.

  Trips, errands, projects.

  Your endless ideas for crochet.

  Always fun banter.

  Realism never hampers our

  funny and smart repartee.

  Except your political overtures.

  But my vote nullifies yours.

  So it don’t matter much anyway.

  Oh—*eyeroll*.

  O-kay. Let’s.

  Let’s.

  *

  —Oh—

  —oh god—

  —you’re so fucking—

  HOTTT

  *

  Well, for the

  ‘Biggest nothing of all-time’!

  that was still pretty good.

  You better hope it was

  a nothing.

  Well.

  We came together…

  Yes.

  …because of books,

  Groan.

  perceived repression

  and sideways looks.

  Well.

  Finally it wasn’t just you

  on your own, because—

  Know what I call that?

  ?

  The Iceman Cometh.

  And now it’s my turn to groan.

  ‘Hey! I resemble that remark.’

  Boring play anyway.

  Hehe.

  Or it’s like the Fellini scene

  we like so much, with the

  double-entendres that no one

  but us ever noticed.

  ‘Should I come, Guido?’

  ‘Yes, of course!

  Come visit me, Luisa!

  You can come in no time!’

  Hehe.

  ‘You want me to come?’

  ‘Of course! Yeah, sure,

  I really care about you coming

  here, Luisa. Your coming is

  really important to me. Honest,

  it is and I’d love it if you’d

  finally just come already.’

  Hahahaha.

  ‘Hm. Watch out, Guido,

  I might actually do it.

  I might actually surprise you

  and come this time.’

  And then she does come

  but with another guy

  and her girlfriends in tow.

  And how can poor Guido get any

  of his stupid thinking done then?

  Yeah…

  I want our own story.

  Not like the story

  you find in a book.

  Or in a movie.

  We can get a list of books

  and read them all.

  Just to make sure.

  Just to make sure

  what we do doesn’t

  repeat any story.

  Just to make sure

  what we do doesn’t

  repeat any story.

  Just to make sure

  what we do doesn’t

  repeat any story.

  ‘Do doesn’t.’

  ‘Do doesn’t.’

  ‘Do doesn’t.’

  ‘Do doesn’t.’

  …

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Sigh.

  Sigh.

  Sigh.

  What did we get from

  reading so many books?

  Those supposedly good books

  we’ll never read again?

  All we got was each other.

  That’s all.

  That’s all.

  It’s not in a book.

  No it’s not in a book.

  It’s in what a book

  makes you think.

  It’s in what a book

  makes you do.

  Or not do.

  Or decide not to do.

  Like decide

  not to have children.

  Or decide that books

  are as good as children

  Or even just articles!

  Yeah.

  ‘I didn’t have kids, but

  I typed up some blurbs

  about

  (What was that thing?)

  ‘Evolutionary Origins of

  Social Exclusion of

  Eastern European Sociopaths

  in Media’

  and resultant discussions

  were dubbed “very interesting”

  by some modestly concerned

  persons who hold high repute

  in small self-important circles of

  other aging people who

  lack children,

  most of them terribly white,

  all of them terribly intellectual

  and just overwhelmingly impressive

  in their fussiness.’

  Yeah, that life is better

  than having a child. To

  further such important

  messaging is really

  crucial for all those

  generations going forward.

  None of whom will have

  any of our DNA in them.

  Yeah. Right.

  But

  seriously, I’m glad we got

  away from all of that,

  away from that scene.

  We aren’t having children

  but at least we aren’t writing

  any more articles or books and

  pretending they’re as good as children

  would be, or could be.

  Just as well.

  It’s the pretending and

  conceit that’s wrong.

  Remember when Cecil said
r />   ‘My students are my children’.

  It’s a little true,

  and a lot sad.

  He is sweet but sad.

  And I love him but would

  never think of him as my father.

  Your Nietzsche said that

  when a woman has scholarly

  inclinations, there is usually

  something very wrong with her

  sexually.

  He is not my Nietzsche.

  But there is probably

  something or other

  wrong with

  everyone who has

  or who ever had

  scholarly inclinations.

  We know this from personal experience.

  And, fucking hell,

  there’s something

  nontraditional about

  everyone’s sexuality now.

  There’s something strange

  about sexuality now period,

  because the meaning changed.

  Look,

  I’m just going to say this.

  While I DO NOT want children,

  the fact that I haven’t had any

  makes me feel like less of a

  person. And no faerie is

  going to come down,

  wave her wand and say

  Voilà,

  now you’re a real girl.

  But honestly if we had kids

  wouldn’t it just be putting off

  our own confusion,

  nonstop sarcasm,

  and self-parody

  onto the next generation?

  Like they could figure

  a way out of this disposition?

  Because I have even less hope

  for the future than I do for us.

  All the hope I need is just

  your legs along side mine

  as I thrust.

  And all the hope I need is only

  the gasps of air I take

  when you bone me.

  All I ever need

  to look forward to

  is us fucking so hard

  we turn black and blue.

  And all I ever need to think about

  when lost and uncertain

  is how we should fuck so hard

  that we’re both hurtin’.

  Yeah you know it’s going great

  when videos help lovers learn

  how to make lovemaking

  more like torture porn.

  (Ow. God.)

  I agree and enjoy it.

  And if I might be so bold,

  I hope we act like porn stars

  when we’re very old.

  That’s been the goal of the ages.

  I have no claims on you.

  You have no claims on me.

  That would make no $ense.

  In every way we’ll be free.

  Yes, I wouldn’t dare dream

  of wanting you to commit.

  And if you claimed to want marriage,

  I wouldn’t swallow it; I’d spit.

  Then split.

  Ha.

  So do you think that this idea

  of hyperbolic brutal movie sex

  is a reaction to how tame

  and finicky most people are

  most of the time?

  You mean like do they have

  this idea that it has to be wild

  because they aren’t wild people

  at all anymore?

  Yes.

  Yes.

  But we are somewhat wild.

  We are somewhat wild.

  Wilder than most.

  (Just a bit.)

  (Maybe more than a bit.)

  I just think most of the people

  who envision sex as

  cartoonishly wild

  turn out to be much tamer

  in bed when the time comes.

  Yeah, you are probably right.

  But *I* certainly wouldn’t know.

  In all of this

  there is a disconnect.

  A strange combination

  of under and over-

  socialization.

  I’m getting tired,

  just so you know.

  Waking working life

  suppresses most our instincts,

  but none of our desires.

  Our desires are encouraged

  consciously now more than ever.

  This sort of new kingdom

  dampens or codifies

  our companionship capacity,

  while enthroning the infertile orgasm,

  the infantile orgasm that does not

  produce infants.

  Yeah. We’ve talked

  about all that before.

  And about how the media

  enables it. But

  for all the time I

  wasted watching it,

  I have rarely if ever

  seen actual ‘sex on tv’.

  I only saw titillation and

  merciless, cruel teasing,

  —bragging, showing off—

  conducted by a cool machine.

  All frosting and no cake,

  when even just the cake used to be good,

  good enough. I think.

  That which was used as an incentive

  to get us to reproduce ourselves

  is now used to reduce ourselves

  into consumers of the insubstantial

  (like eating…sweet air or nothingness),

  and we are defunct obsolete

  products of our own un(re)productiveness.

  If you be quiet I’ll

  give you a handjob.

  >:-(

  I’m lying.

  I don’t give you handjobs.

  Go on if you must.

  We once read something about

  ‘expensive spirit in a waste of shame’

  —Because shame shouldn’t be wasted!

  Because without potential shame

  you cannot fully enjoy the naughtiness.

  I am your

  Little Miss Naughty.

  You called me that you.

  In the past I don’t think

  people ‘lived through their

  children’. I think they just

  sensed, and had good reason

  for sensing, that they’d

  produced something viable,

  and they were rightly proud

  of that. That is a satisfaction

  we will never know.

  ‘The point of intimacy is

  having children.

  I’ve got your ‘point’

  of intimacy right here.

  It is a state that arises when

  nature says you should be

  making children. Nothing

  more on a biological level.

  No longer slaves of our biology,

  we are enthralled instead

  by overwrought and

  bourgeois considerations.’

  That is what I wrote and got

  a higher grade than you did.

  And do you believe it?

  Did you ever?

  I don’t know.

  It sounded good in a way.

  It still sounds okay.

  I look at myself now and think

  ‘Congratulations, you have succeeded

  in doing something none of your

  ancestors could manage:

  not having children.’

  Yeah.

  I told you not to think

  that way.

  I don’t want to talk about

  children anymore.

  Turn off the light, please.

  You know how we talked about

  inoculation? And how it has a

  double meaning? You inject

  someone with a small version of a virus

  to prevent the host from contracting

  that virus randomly in a larger way?

  I thought you were tired.
br />   But yeah inoculate can mean

  giving a disease or preventing

  it. Giving a disease in order to

  prevent it.

  I’m tired, though.

  Your penis inoculates me.

  It is like a needle in some way.

  You inject me but life doesn’t happen.

  Weird girl.

  But yeah

  it’s not real sex

  if it’s protected.

  Like how we call it

  ‘simulating the sex act’

  which is very clinical

  and thus naughty.

  ‘More unwanted children

  are prevented through

  safe sex than through

  attempted abstinence.’

  The more ejaculations you have,

  the less likely we are

  to have kids. Statistics show!

  Contraception through

  abstinence, or contraception

  through absence, or

  contraception through

  absinthe.

  Pick your poison.

  Heh.

  Scaredy cat or sacred cat.

  What if people had to have sex

  in order to prevent pregnancy

  from spontaneously developing?

  How would that change civilization?

  hahaha

  Weird guy.

  A lot of spinsters

  and hermits descending

  from mountain cabins,

  ascending from fallout shelters,

  bringing their broods

  of asexually reproduced

  homunculi to take over the world.

  I’m going to have nightmares.

  Know how I solved

  my nightmares?

  ?

  Started sleeping with a doll.

  (You.)

  A doll that talks.

  Enchanted possessed

  Artificial but super-natural

  ‘My dream isn’t a nightmare…

  …as long as you’re in it.’

  ‘And my scheme isn’t a conspiracy…

  …as long as I’m in on it.’

  Goodnight weird girl.

  Goodnight weird guy.

  Aww.

  III. Cozy Storm

  School starts again soon, but tonight it’s smores

  at Gram’s fireplace after an afternoon outdoors.

  My sister and brother and me, spending the night

  like we were still little kids. Sam grabs a flashlight

  (because it’s storming and Gram heard thunder),

  holds it to his chin: Will a ghost get us, I wonder?