Nothing will ever alleviate
the chore that is turning
my body over, bird-thin heels
and all, so that my boyfriend
can come at me from a different angle.
At least the cushion on his futon
offers reprieve of the carnal
blunderings television never
bothered to show me when I
was a child. Now I know to have
sex with men who can flip a bitch.
Why is it that eyes close shut
just as balloon-popping pleasure
expands between your legs,
like some sort of window-shade
that falls down after sunset?
They pry open when his fingers
fist in my hair, yanking on
the Latina curls in the way
I sometimes ask him to,
but today is different and it is sad
that he cannot see the tension
building the curve of my scapulas.
You’re my little slut aren’t you he
breathes. My hips smash flat,
forward upon his own and I am choking
on a trachea that wants to rip
itself free of the carotid roommate
it never wanted, just to inflame
destruction. Don’t call me that
is says instead, but I don’t think
he can even hear me through
the animal noises he makes, like sex
is an Olympic sport and he is a gold
medalist in place of the childish
spectator I know him to be. Okay
he answers without hitching the thrusts
of his own hips, because getting some
is the real trophy here, and I know then
that this is not sex and I am not his girlfriend
and I will pretend that this never happened,

because I do not want to remember
what it feels like to be fucked.

Olivia Torres is a senior at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. She is an English major and has a concentration in writing. Olivia has been published in the Merrimack Review and her work has also been accepted by Open Minds Quarterly. Currently, she is working on her first chapbook, which she hopes to publish in the summer of 2018.