Jendi Reiter

Satisfaction

my therapist wakes up every morning wanting to die

and I say, that's the only desire

we can count on

coming true, but what we both wish for is

not to die but to wake up someone

who doesn't remember

pleasure feels like death. death feels like washing dishes

in the wreckage

of unwanted pieces that could still be eaten.

we're too separate from the gnawed

scalloped-edge of cheese, the spit-limp lettuce

in the smear of oil

my therapist would never lick

from my plate. what's stopping me

is nothing.

that's the porridge of happiness.

the salt-less okay.

incest is our brand.

my therapist has a one-woman show.

i write novels about piss

and bleach my house.

when the unspeakable sits on your sofa

crying pinkly for fifty minutes

and you win prizes for dancing with it

only the ridiculous

remains beyond your mouth

to be sucked like a red number five migraine

thousand-calorie lollipop

by you

i mean me

my therapist

is wearing a low-cut sundress

flushing with sweat

i try to look anywhere but

i've only been a man for two years

my world is a cornucopia of new mistakes

she asks me to work early on

banal disappointments and i tell her

i want to throw my cat out the door

i signed up for this warm body

and it doesn't please me.

Reading "Sexuality Beyond Consent" with My Cat

the polymorphously perverse nips at my heels.

no, Theodore!  in the fishbowl

of the office, the analyst dabbles

a claw in slippery waters. Dr. Saketopoulou:

affirmative consent assumes a rational subject

who doesn't tear open

bags of raw chicken, who knows what'll make him sick

of his childhood. Theodore: rrrrr

part-object, infantile desire attaches to feet

like the old ball-n-chain

they taught us was love and kittens.

it's all over the skin like fur,

attachment's barbed tongue

supposed to clean us

of saying Yes to No. Theodore,

down! is not a safeword

but a shot we both

didn't see coming, the future's needle

that'll make you perfectly

compliant in my arms. more and more and more

says Dr. Saketopoulou. who wants to eat my eyeballs

when i die. who's a good boy.