Fairytale World

You’re unsatisfied, he tells me.

I lay confidently in his arms in a warm home,

Warm bed, yet his words hang in the air and

Cling onto every atom in the densely dark room.

Reaching my breath,

I breathe in his 5 syllables,

Relentlessly they spill into my being,

Like a biocontainment alarming my body,

He’s right, I am bored.

And he must be bored too!

Maybe boredom is erotic,

When men do it, for women…

I want him to hear,

I need him to see,

But it can’t come from me,

I already know this from others.

There’s warmth in my erotic boredom,

It subtly follows me everywhere I go,

Like a little girl gently tugging at my arm,

Persistent at her quest to play.

There’s another man.

I don’t tell him this, of course

I’m not supposed to,

I’m supposed to tell the little girl who tugs:

Her world is only fairytale,

But lying to her hits me hard in my gut.

My stomach is smart you see

Because there’s also a little boy —

Who follows and tugs on the other man’s arm,

Persistent at his quest to play.

And there’s the thing,

The little girl and the little boy who tug,

Live in a very real,

Fairytale world.

Vivian N. Lopez