sex

The perfect slut

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

perfect_slut

The perfect slut
Nokyoung Xayasane

The perfect slut
likes to take photos
on its camera phone.
It positions its body
just so
the way I like it.

The perfect slut
is the right combination
of cute and hot.
But this slut has a brain.
It’s a librarian/model/art curator.
It knows its grammar.
It speaks five languages,
but it knows
when to shut up,
it knows
when to go
on its knees.

The perfect slut
adores sex,
but it doesn’t talk
about it,
not in public,
online,
and never on social media.
You see,
I like my sluts
to be classy.
Take note,
my perfect slut
is GGG
and always DTF.

Oh me oh my,
I like a lot of different sluts,
sometimes more than one
in a week, in a day,
but if my slut hints
at its own body,
its workings
and its needs,
I tell my slut,
Be classy, slut,
be classy.

I let my slut know,
Hey, all my friends
want to fuck you.
It finds this satisfying
because this is the
highest compliment
I can give my slut,
to acknowledge
its desirability.

I like my slut
to talk dirty to me,
but its problems
at work, with its friends,
with its family?
No thanks.
My slut doesn’t have
these problems.

I tell my slut
it can message me
all it wants,
it can sleep over
if it wishes,
I’ll give it some cab money,
I’ll pay for its Uber.
I may even drive my slut
home in the morning
if I feel chivalrous.

So, hey, I’ve just dropped
my slut off at its house,
and I promised
I’d text it later
soon.
Maybe I’ll wait
three to five days.
But until then,
I wonder,
Where’s my next
perfect slut?
Where is he?

to keep from drowning

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

release_me

Caravaggio
Nokyoung Xayasane

It’s not hard to see
nor difficult
to predict
that we would be here
in this room
on this night
again,
and again,
and again,
and again.

I can still feel
your fingers,
the arch
of your thumb,
the soft giving
of your palm.

I’ll brush my hand
along your back,
its smooth
unexplored terrain.

I’ll rest my head
on the dampness of
your chest,
a heaving that calms
and then
heaves again.

In the room,
there are only
two bodies.
In this space,
there are
no
questions.

When I hear
your voice
my body
vanishes,
it falls away.
My body,
it returns again,
new and magnified.
My skin,
it becomes
a fragile sheath
that slips
to the floor
effortlessly.

When I feel
the pressure
of your
open mouth,
its sharpness
steady
against my lip,
I know,
my body,
it belongs to you,
it obeys
your commands,
it understands
and it questions,
it anticipates,
and it gives in,
my body,
it gives over.

There is
a purity
to the brutality.
There is a holiness
in the defilement.
You are a raw
untethered wire
ripping through
the air,
electric,
sparking,
alive.
I am
a jumble
of unconnected
thoughts
veering off-course,
trying to keep
from drowning.

And then
there is a quietness
in the room.
There are
a multitude
of breaths,
calm
and steady,
long
and pure.
There is
your body
elongated
against the sheets.
There is my
fragility
lying next to you.
Along
my body
you have left
your marks
seen and unseen.

We hold
each other
close
to prevent
ourselves
from
going
under.

Do you think you’re the only one?

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

True or false?

True or false?

The only one
Nokyoung Xayasane

When you asked me
to meet you in the library,
I went.

When you asked me
to go on my knees,
I did.

When you asked me
to bend over,
I did.

I may have met you at the library.
I may have gone on my knees.
I may have bent over.

But it’s you
who’s searching
through the stacks,
it’s you
who’s on his knees,
it’s you
who’s bent over.
Is it not?

Control.
You think you have it?
Do you think that?

I imagine you
reading this now
with an expression
of quiet amusement,
embarrassment,
lust,
always lust.

Do you think
you’re the only one
reading this
thinking these thoughts,
thinking these words
are about him?

Do you think
you are
the only one,
my only one?

Do you think that?

Okay, see you
at the library.

I’ll look for the one
on his knees,
you,
my only one.

(25 March 2016)

that expands and is everywhere

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

that expands and is everywhere

The Morning After
Nokyoung Xayasane

The light holds here
                        through the silken drapes
            hanging on your walls
            that separate
our murmured voices
from the outside world
 
I hold this memory
           like a   grain     of sand
                        encapsulated in time
                                    on the brink of            
                                                          falling
            through the overturned hourglass
 
The white sheets
                      still hold the brilliance
            of the night
 
Our laughter
                        effortlessly weaving
            a pattern on the ceiling
                        an open window
                                    letting in the evening air
 
Your books                on the mantel
                       ease me into
            the hollow
of your neck
the curve of my spine
           the small
                      of your back
 
Scattered        on the floor
                                 my blouse
                                            your jacket
 
Coming together
                                in the hours before
          filtered light enters
through curtained glass
that expands and is everywhere
 
           the warmth of the sun
                                    on silken drapes.

(September 2010)

Make me into something, someone you want.

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

Release me

Release me

Release me
Nokyoung Xayasane

My phone lights up,
and I know
it is you.
You nasty,
filthy
creature.
Where did you come from?

The things you’ve said to me
make me wet with vomit.
I will come
to you
in the hours
before the dawn
lights up the sky.

What we have,
it lives in the dark.
It lives there,
doesn’t it?

When I wake
at three in the morning
to check my phone,
I hope you are there,
waiting for me,
anticipating me.

What will you have me do
this time?
What dirty, nasty thing
will you have me do?
I will do it.
And I will like it.

Tell me
how I should
position myself.
Tell me
which way
you like me.
And I will do it.
I will like it.

When I drink too much,
I watch the men around me
watching me,
wanting me
like animals.
They graze
their bodies
against me
as I make my way
to the washroom.

They are animals,
aren’t they?
Those nasty,
filthy creatures.
Make small talk with me.
Buy me a drink.
I know what they want.
What they all want.
Those nasty,
filthy creatures.

Bind me.
Make me
into something,
someone
you want.
It is performance.
It is
all performance.

But then
someone says
the releasing word.
And I am gone.

Set me free.
Say the releasing word.
Say it.
And I am gone.

(January 2016)

I am not beautiful

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

I_am_not_beautiful

With you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler
(Lines Depicting Simple Happiness, Peter Gizz)

I am not beautiful
Nokyoung Xayasane

When you told me
you were fucking her,
I felt nothing.

Not much has changed
since you left.
I still wake up in the morning
and make my coffee.
I still laugh with friends in cafes.
I still find beauty in the pink light
punching out from between
condos and high rises.
I flick the light switches
on and off
to watch the shadows
emerge and disappear.
On New Year’s Eve I kissed a girl,
and it was fine.
All weekend, I fucked a stranger.
I drank all night
and threw up in my wastebasket.
I feel nothing.
I feel everything.

Sometimes when the loneliness
presses hard
against my chest,
I lie my head on
my own splayed arm
and with my other arm,
I cradle myself.
When my head feels hot,
I lie my face against the vanity
to feel its coolness.
I hope it will
enter me
and I will be refreshed,
renewed,
someone different
from myself.

I stood on the corner
of Broadway and Yonge
and watched the snow
carefully descending,
pirouetting from the sky,
and the darkness
a backdrop
for a city living.

I felt alcohol and weed surge
through my blood as I made
my way to the subway
with condoms and fresh panties
in my pockets.
Semper paratus,
as they say.

I fuck strangers
and wake from the sleep of them.
I am weak, I know,
and vengeful. I am not beautiful.

(January 2016)

no your body is no prison

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

Padmapani, Breyten Breytenbach

Padmapani
No your body is no prison
your understanding has petals
sweeter than moonlight
your hair is a secret
black wave
a banner against the light
two butterflies have settled
on the twigs above your nose
if only to upset my pen
and each ear is a beach
against the wash of tides
your eyes are two shelters in the desert
two tents with brilliant peacocks
and my eyelashes lament on your shoulders
your back is a glistening lance in water
and soon after dusk your small dunes
rose from my palms
your heart moves with the quick
soundlessness of chewing peanuts
your hands are tom thumb
and all his brownish friends
where your thighs meet your belly
struts a small proud plume
o hail to the jewel in the lotus
how sweet it must be
to dive upwards
into that nothingness
no your body is no prison
Padmapani

(translated by André Brink)

(South Africa)

The Poetry of Our World: An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (2000)