Sleeping and other poems by Simone Savannah

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Vending Machine Press in Poems

She says last night I was all over the bed
pushing her to the edge of it
and I am laughing with her
because I remember how this started with you—
If appropriate I would say your name
recall aloud the time you text me
a picture of a comforter with the words
his side and her side stitched on separate sides
of a big bed
his side on white background and her side
on black but his side
significantly more narrow
You say ‘Lol this made me think of you’
and today I know what it is like to want to leave
someone and not just for someone else
but maybe for a big bed I can be alone in
or for choosing which side to tangle my body
in sheets, or I almost tell her of the time I am ready
to cheat on her like how I have him on the couch
and he has his fingers pearling in me
before I tell him no
I want him to leave too
like how you go and have babies on me
but he begs me to keep my clothes off
to take him where she and I sleep
he says he knows I miss it but do I remember
do I remember how he feels
he says he certainly remembers the ocean
that is my body
What do you know now
about the space I take up

I want it back I want it back

Leaving

Today is a good day to call my good friend
and let him know I’ve almost done it
that I think I’d be more happy cheating on you
than being with you and somebody might be like why
don’t you just break up with her and it’s like
I’ve tried I’ve tried I’ve tried
He and I joke about
her ex-girlfriend being the better woman
she should leave me for her
again and he says naw she still wouldn’t
go if you told her
you were sitting next to him on the couch
polishing the tip of his dick with the licked tip
of your thumb
Yes — I asked him to pull me into his lap
said yes I want to fuck you because it’s good
it’s so good and I miss it but I can’t because I’m not
really dangerous or am I because shit
if it’s because you’ll be leaving
the state for a while then let’s do it
put your fingers in me be a big man lift me
You say I don’t remember what it’s like
and I tell you I couldn’t forget
let’s meet next tuesday

and fuck all day all day

My thing with B

When I arrive at my ex-baby father—because I had the abortion—
when I arrive at my ex-baby father brother’s house
he has on a big smile and he hugs me long until it’s clear he wants me
and he says look how long and pretty your hair has gotten since I last seen you in ’09
When I look up at him
smile at his dark brown
tell him thank you
he says girl you turn me on.
I ask him even after my thing with B? because I want him to know how nasty he is
and he says even before that
like it was about timing—

he expects he will wet me up now
get to come in me
thinks he can make my honey sweeter
dip and twist his late dick in abortion blood or abortion cum
that he now, too, will slip out and spill his liquid white
let his thick bare brown finish its convulsions on my shaking open thighs
because he couldn’t somehow do it before B,

or before his thing.

Like Kansas

This morning I am in Kansas
finishing the last of the blunt
we shared.
“I’m high” you said
and we stopped smoking to make love with our tongues and our breaths—

I don’t want to fuck anyone else until I fuck you again:
have your spit dripping toward my nipples | your dick
tapping my teeth| your magic in my throat |
your magic on my cheek
again

I want to be on top of you or near you until my body
convulses or pretends it can’t speak—

I want to chain smoke fire with you so I can lick the ashes
from your fingertips | have you lick the nectar from my fingertips |
have you swallow the laughter from my fingertips
until we are high enough to really
pray to God—

to ask Her to make time the same time
and make distance a place in the middle
like Kansas

After the Gym

Tonight I run 2 miles at the gym then go see
the weed man. He is a tall white lanky thing
packing a fourth into a Ziploc bag for me.

I think to myself that he is sexy because he moves
slowly and looks me in the eye when he takes my cash.
I smile at him and imagine us fucking.
I think I like white men, too.

Tonight I also sit in the middle of my bed with the light
off and the Christmas lights on. I am smoking the purple
he gave me, rethinking Alice Walker lines—maybe it will
piss God off if I don’t smoke a bowl or tuck some of it into
a shell tomorrow, meditate with it, notice the way it makes my
chest vibrate and my nipples pinch the inside of my bra—

I think the world is beautiful and my cat is human. I am
surrounded by crystals because I believe I am a witch.
I tell myself it is okay to stay up past midnight, talk to Irv
on the phone, have sext with Kellen, eat homemade Lara
bars on my back.

Movement

My godfather asked once if I had a poem for the liberation.
I told him I had one for the abortion where I write that B
made me cum all over his sheets, that it was March 28^th
the day my nephew was born—
He has never read any of my poems.

And JB asked if my poems are about nasty stuff.
I hope he sees that these are poems
/taken from his mouth
and if we don’t get married,
my husband will see this and think I’m crazy,
/think I still love him.

And there’s a poem I want to write about how no one
fucks me long enough, how women ain’t coming enough,
how I ain’t had sex enough.
How do you write about this shit in a dissertation,
I want to ask my godfather ?

And I want him to tell me to /keep fucking
/keep popping my pussy, my yoni /try anal one more time—
I want him to read these poems and laugh at this shit
know that I love massaging the tips of my breasts when I’m alone
and using a diva cup sometimes, and sometimes like
letting the love of my lifetimes
/lie on top of me and fall asleep, and
letting him disappear inside me
while he is laughing against my mouth—

My godfather, though, might believe I am a witch
and all I need is dick and weed
but I will tell him that I also need God
and like being told that I got the best pussy
despite the abortion or the blood.
I will tell him that like being fucked doggy-style
because I like the gaze and the way my body jerks
when it is free or worshipping

About the author:

Simone Savannah is from Columbus, Ohio and studies Creative Writing at The University of Kansas. Her poems are forthcoming and have appeared in Big Lucks, Powder Keg, Apogee, GlitterMOB, The Fem, The Pierian, Blackberry: A Magazine & Voicemail Poems. Whens she’s not writing, she’s fucking and lifting. You can find her on Instagram at PerfectVerse22.