FOUR POEMS by KELLY LORRAINE ANDREWS
The Anarchist
Expect men not to be funny. I have to keep reminding myself of this. The Anarchist was a do-gooder, sober, skilled at emergency services during raves. His family owned two brownstones in New York. He had just emptied his retirement fund to buy 12 acres in Maine. When he shit talked the cops for 3 minutes straight, I made furtive eye contact with the server and thought, You’ll inherit millions someday. I say my mother is retired, but in the Social Security sort of way. She is newly engaged to what will be her third husband.
You love love, I say
in my head, the little seed
of hope holding on.
The Walking Red Flag
When he walked into the bar, Pablo Picasso played. I wanted him to like me immediately, despite the 2 fast 2 furious way he later kissed. He was the kind of man who could ruin me into thinking I’m not enough. There was the cheating on his estranged wife. The fact that he could fuck. He bought a high-end cock ring for the second time we met. He said a lot of things in text like, I like being a dumb tinder toy // I’m the right mix of toxic and loving // I want to buy a gun. I don’t know why but I do. Couldn’t he just tell me I’m a beautiful genius goddess? Distract me from this body that I can’t will to change?
If I’m part of god,
what am I supposed to learn
about all this pain?
Cowboy Boots and a Pickup Truck
You wouldn’t think this would be a turn on, but I go to the honky-tonk each month, admire the mustaches of men hoping one will ask me to dance. He wasn’t a cowboy but he looked good in the boots, his Ford pickup blue. An hour into our first conversation, we looked up his name on eDocket and he described the night of each criminal charge. There was something endearing about the honesty of it all. I joked about getting the clap in college, and then we high-fived when he said “Same!” He was weeks out of his last relationship, her picture still the wallpaper on his phone. I told him all about the quirks of my body and let him touch me for a while.
I want to lay my
head in a lap, be known and
loved in the knowing.
Cat Mask
Full-on goatee. It took me nearly all of the tea that he didn’t offer to pay for to decide if I could make out with him. Later, I tell myself that if a man fucks that good, he can have mutton chops. I never get to see the cat mask that was packed away with his other toys, a one-and-done that hits pangs of shame I had forgotten about. I reach out and out. I send a topless pic in a chain halter. I’m back on my not good enough bullshit.
I consider for
the 10th time if dating men
is worth the feeling.
Like the artist Gertrude Abercrombie, Kelly Lorraine Andrews has been married and divorced, taken many sexual partners, and has minimal interest in motherhood. Her most recent chapbook "What Happens When" is out with pitymilk press.