poetry

waiting is my favorite part

If I had it my way, I would take back every time I said not I love you, but I adore you, my admiration palpable and thick as the silver tightrope between us. I would take back the times I needed you. Would take back the times you pried open my ribcage and I relaxed to let your fist close over my heart. Take back the revealing of my thin underbelly, every time I rolled over to show you how soft and small I was, a creature of defence, an animal with simple needs like adequacy. Not so hard really.

I would take back the times I launched myself into you like a pilgrimage, like an exhibition of discovery. Yes, I am an explorer. I seek to understand before I dominate.

Take back the love notes and red paper hearts sent special delivery. Take back the mornings I woke satisfied. Take back the days of shoving myself into a corner and letting you insert word after careful word onto my tongue like communion from a priest: the body of Christ. I took you as seriously.

If I had it my way, I would take back the longing, the pining, the days of anticipation. Really that was always my favorite part: waiting for you to arrive, because before you were there you would only be who I wanted you to be, which was exactly the problem, because while I woudl dream you one way and observe you another, you would rewrite my DNA to better match the way you dreamed me.

I would take back the times I let you rewrite me. As though you are the novelist (and not me). As though I am a character and you have a chart where you can fill in my attributes: likes. Dislikes. Coping mechanisms. Compulsions.

I would take back the times I told you what I want, because I should’ve known it wasn’t you and left it at that. But who knows that when you are a master at shapeshifting, at chameleoning to become what those around you need?

I am still waiting for your thin, soft underbelly, to see you roll onto your back, sit calmly and hold enough space still that I may walk right into it and unfurl my arms, uncurl my fiddlehead ferns. I am still waiting.

I am still waiting
for someone
who isn’t you –
no wonder the waiting was always

my favorite part.

Published by Sinclair Sexsmith

Sinclair Sexsmith (they/them) is "the best-known butch erotica writer whose kinky, groundbreaking stories have turned on countless queers" (AfterEllen), who "is in all the books, wins all the awards, speaks at all the panels and readings, knows all the stuff, and writes for all the places" (Autostraddle). ​Their short story collection, Sweet & Rough: Queer Kink Erotica, was a 2016 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and they are the current editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series. They identify as a white non-binary butch dominant, a survivor, and an introvert, and they live outside Seattle as an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, & unceded Snoqualmie land.

3 thoughts on “waiting is my favorite part”

  1. femmegyrl says:

    so sad and so gorgeous sinclair. i loved the rich cadence and the wistfulness of this. and my heart geos out to you in your sadness. but i hope hope hope that you wouldn’t ever wish away the experience of knowing her, of being with her, of surrendering to that desire simply to avoid this pain you feel now. you have to know that all of the experiences, the good the bad and the ugly are what make you into the stellar butch woman you are.
    p.s. scars are hot.

  2. sinclair says:

    ms. femmegyrl: of course, I would never wish away knowing her. I’m so grateful for every minute of it.
    p.s. you’re hot ;)

  3. ~K says:

    I recently started reading your blog and I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely adore reading your poetry … or pretty much anything you write actually. So full of emotion, so heart-breakingly beautiful, you have quite the way with words Sinclair.

    I felt moved to leave this comment because today after reading several months worth or this blog (I'm starting from the beginning) I felt inspired to write a poem for the first time in nearly 10 years. It's a terrible poem but it's mine and I'm thrilled about it! I hope you have a wonderful day and thank you for writing.

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