Pure Nostalgic Soppiness

I’ve been sorting out the ‘my documents’ section of my computer which hasn’t been reorganised since the second year of Uni, back in 2002. It has been quite some feat! I have found millions of unfinished blogs, introductory paragraphs for short stories and lots of embarrassing photographs.

Also, over the course of this frustrating dragging, sorting and deleting of files, I came across some old poems. They made me feel quite nostalgic so I thought I’d share the ‘best’ (I use the term loosely) ones on this blog so they’re not just languishing away on my hard drive for the next five years.

The following three are love poems, written over the course of mine and Owen’s relationship. They are displayed in chronological order. ‘Marked’ was a poem I wrote the morning after the first time we had sex without a condom, I was wrapped in a blanket waiting for Owen to make me a cup of tea and feeling very taken, very in love. ‘Because you must love me’ was written in the aftermath of a silly argument as a reconciliation gift, and ‘Victory’ was composed on the beach outside our Honeymoon apartment, three days after we had married.


Marked

It smells
sickly sweet
running down
my insides.
I thought it
would waft up in
savoury swirls.
I thought it was
supposed to be
salty.
It trickles out of me
soaking through my
stolen boxer shorts.
I think of them now,
swimming inside of me,
tiny little tadpoles
that all have your face.


Because I guess you must love me

I’m sorry for my clothes,
on your bedroom floor.
For never shutting the toilet door,
For being too tired and not rubbing your head,
my knickers kicked carelessly under the bed.
For turning conversation too often on me
and endlessly wondering what the future will be.
For eating all the pickled onions in the jar
and constantly dreaming of being a star.
For not washing up
and picking my nose
and ignoring five day old
stains on my clothes.
For talking and talking,
dragging heels when I’m walking
for interrupting john snow-
and finding it hard to just flow.
For not being bothered to go on top,
for keeping on going when you ask me to stop.
For wearing your dressing gown and burning the sleeve,
and just never knowing when I should leave.
For farting and wafting it under your nose,
for admiring and lusting then stealing your clothes.
For my hair brained schemes, my silly ideas
my cigarette breath and not cleaning my ears.
For the occasional tantrum when I don’t get my own way
my inevitable tendency to overlay
tell me this darling:
why the fuck do you stay?


Victory

He swims
up and down
the shore,
head bobbing
like a beautiful buoy
in the ocean.
His skin
glistens
in the sun,
his eyes
sparkle
like the water
dripping down
his body.
And I think
fuck me
how good it is
to witness
death
being cheated
by flesh
and blood.
How we've lost
before we've started
but our small
victories
are sips of
water
on a long
hot day
in Spain.

Buddhing Sexuality

Warning, friends of Jen, I am going to talk frankly about sex in the following article. If you think you might find this disturbing, look away now!

3. I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct (adultery, rape, exploitation, etc).

Number three, the way I interpret it is simple, and will, I think, be easy to keep. Buddha, if he was teaching now, however, might disagree. The way I see it though, I do refrain from sexual misconduct; I am a married woman and even when temptation has sometimes come along, I have never cheated on O and hopefully never will. I define cheating as sleeping with somebody else, or doing anything sexually (even kissing) with somebody else behind his back. As for the heavy stuff, I have never raped anyone, sold someone in to sex slavery, prostitution or supported someone who did. Just to clear that up! I don’t even watch porn very often, hardly at all. I think, sexually, I am reasonably ethical. I try to be a caring, considerate lover, in the bedroom and out. I put O's needs first, and am enthusiastic about making sure he is satisfied. Sure, there’s the whole lust thing. I have a (very) dirty mind and sometimes get the occasional crush on people other than O, and once or twice I’ve, hand on heart, got a bit too carried away; started wondering if I should propose a threesome to get it out of my system! But, at least so far, its all been strictly mental activity only. To be fair, I have always told O honestly about how I’m feeling and never tried to conceal anything from him. And he tells me when he has a silly crush himself, and I have always been understanding about that in return.

After all, we’re human, we have human urges, and I believe that a lot of problems happen in relationships when you start lying about those urges or pretending to yourself that they’re not happening. Even in the past when those urges have got a bit out of hand, I’m glad that I was honest about them rather than covering them up. So I guess that if I’m going to have a problem with any of this precept, it’s going to be if people start demanding that I’m mentally pure. Fuck that. I love O more than myself, he knows that, and we are going to be together forever, but, newsflash, it’s not only men who have problems keeping their eyes to themselves. I can’t help but notice the fit Rastafarian businessman who uses the pool at the same time as me. I can’t stop my eyes lingering over his body and pausing in certain interesting places. Call it weakness, call it nature, call it what you will, sometimes I simply can’t help myself.

As well as a wonderful, loving and exciting sex life with O, I also have a healthy relationship with my vibrator, and if Buddha is going to have a problem with that, then I might have a problem with him. Fantasy and imagination are a big part of my sexual drive, and masturbation plays a big role in that, and always has. And guess what? My sexual fantasies aren’t all big bunches of flowers and running through long grass being kissed under the old Oak tree by a tall dark stranger like Mills and Boon writers would have you believe. I do not, either, as Ann Summers suggests, fantasise about a stripper with an oiled chest, a 13” cock and an even bigger ego. These, in my experience are not what most women fantasise about. In reality we’re often a lot darker, a lot more twisted than that. As the title of a certain best selling book goes: ‘screw the roses, send me the thorns’, and I think a lot of women can relate to that.

You know what else? I’m unapologetic for this. I don’t feel guilt or shame, that’s one of the reasons I can post this on such a public forum. I think its part of a healthy, natural sexual life and part of being a liberated woman is allowing yourself to come to terms with these desires. I can’t imagine anything worse than the bland, missionary focused orgasm faking sex life that frankly, so many women in Britain have to endure on a daily basis. By having a sexual relationship with myself, as well as with my husband I am able to be more explorative, mentally and physically, and more satisfied as I know my own body better and how it works so well. I don’t know where Buddhism really stands on issues like this, but if he is foolish enough to attempt it, Buddha is going to have one hell of a time trying to separate me from my rabbit! So yes, precept three is very much a matter of interpretation. I suspect my concepts of sexuality may differ somewhat from the Buddha’s who did not live in an age of sex toys and pornography. However, I hope that if I were in conversation with him today, he could see that, in my sexual conduct, I do try to be ethical, loving, and respectful even if it’s not the way things have traditionally been done.