Perfect Things
︎︎︎ Francesca Kritikos
︎MAY 31, 2022
I keep drinking glasses of plain almond milk, thick and vanilla, 30 kcal a pop, perfect. Keep getting in bed with my tummy hurting.
*
I keep going back to get waxed so that when we fuck I can look like a child. I keep my eyes on the ceiling as the black wax burns against my skin, not interested in seeing what my body wants for me. I keep buying wax passes for discounts on Brazilians. They tell me it's $150 upfront, and I have to sign and initial a bunch of papers, a taking on of responsibility that possibly negates the part where I look like a child. I keep my card on file, the Mastercard ending with 1883? Yes, I keep saying.
*
I keep the receipt from the wax salon, which says $402, $301.50 and $100.50 in different spots but I don't see $150 anywhere. None of the numbers seem to have any connection, though know that can't be true. I don't check my bank account, don't want to know how the math adds up, breaks down.
*
I keep walking to the drugstore for vanilla protein powder and Gatorade Zero, the light blue one. I keep being unable to resist the indigestibility of inulin, the protein powder’s key ingredient. Inulin may cause bloating and weight loss, it sits in the intestines and fills them up. One day I accidentally buy the dark blue shade of Gatorade Zero, and when I realize, something like anger tries to move inside of me but lacks the space.
*
I keep remembering my father’s anger, like a full glass of wrong-colored liquid in a raised hand, dropping. I’d have it, too, if I let myself. I think you have it, but I don’t have the proof. We keep playing nice with each other, all stones left unturned, unthrown. You are too smart to let me see your anger, knowing it is the only thing that may rouse me to move in a direction away from you, and it is to your advantage that I stay in your big bed where you knot up my hair and talk onto the silence.
*
I keep getting sleep paralysis, feeling the demonic presence of a masculine entity on my chest. The men who get on top of me don't tend to carry their own weight. Keep letting it drop.
*
I keep meaning to squeeze your head when it’s between my thighs, but I can’t bring myself to the action. When we meet at the wine bar by your apartment I mean to tell you that we shouldn't be doing this anymore, that there is every reason we should not be in bed together, but I haven't eaten enough, and I'm too tired to say words that I don't believe, or words that I do.
*
I keep ignoring your texts, or trying to. You keep up the silence, until I start seeing you behind the wheel of every car. Until I start soaking through my underwear and clothes, starving. You tend toward the dark, and I am looking for the light: We keep ending up in the same place. You feed me through the right mouth, and I keep trying to make it last. I keep trying to make it the last time. I stumble home, from dark to dark.
*
I keep bleeding. Eight months I didn’t get my period and felt like a god. I let anyone have me, wanted to see who would try. I fucked my idols until they weren’t my idols. Now I have my period again, and I understand the freedom was never real: I’ll let anyone have me. I fuck my idols until they aren’t my idols, but I just want them back.
*
I keep using my wand vibrator while watching videos of fully clothed women speaking softly, the only time sex feels safe. Keep falling asleep with the bulb filling the gap between my thighs like an egg. Perfect things have nothing alive in them, I keep noticing.
*
I keep going back to get waxed so that when we fuck I can look like a child. I keep my eyes on the ceiling as the black wax burns against my skin, not interested in seeing what my body wants for me. I keep buying wax passes for discounts on Brazilians. They tell me it's $150 upfront, and I have to sign and initial a bunch of papers, a taking on of responsibility that possibly negates the part where I look like a child. I keep my card on file, the Mastercard ending with 1883? Yes, I keep saying.
*
I keep the receipt from the wax salon, which says $402, $301.50 and $100.50 in different spots but I don't see $150 anywhere. None of the numbers seem to have any connection, though know that can't be true. I don't check my bank account, don't want to know how the math adds up, breaks down.
*
I keep walking to the drugstore for vanilla protein powder and Gatorade Zero, the light blue one. I keep being unable to resist the indigestibility of inulin, the protein powder’s key ingredient. Inulin may cause bloating and weight loss, it sits in the intestines and fills them up. One day I accidentally buy the dark blue shade of Gatorade Zero, and when I realize, something like anger tries to move inside of me but lacks the space.
*
I keep remembering my father’s anger, like a full glass of wrong-colored liquid in a raised hand, dropping. I’d have it, too, if I let myself. I think you have it, but I don’t have the proof. We keep playing nice with each other, all stones left unturned, unthrown. You are too smart to let me see your anger, knowing it is the only thing that may rouse me to move in a direction away from you, and it is to your advantage that I stay in your big bed where you knot up my hair and talk onto the silence.
*
I keep getting sleep paralysis, feeling the demonic presence of a masculine entity on my chest. The men who get on top of me don't tend to carry their own weight. Keep letting it drop.
*
I keep meaning to squeeze your head when it’s between my thighs, but I can’t bring myself to the action. When we meet at the wine bar by your apartment I mean to tell you that we shouldn't be doing this anymore, that there is every reason we should not be in bed together, but I haven't eaten enough, and I'm too tired to say words that I don't believe, or words that I do.
*
I keep ignoring your texts, or trying to. You keep up the silence, until I start seeing you behind the wheel of every car. Until I start soaking through my underwear and clothes, starving. You tend toward the dark, and I am looking for the light: We keep ending up in the same place. You feed me through the right mouth, and I keep trying to make it last. I keep trying to make it the last time. I stumble home, from dark to dark.
*
I keep bleeding. Eight months I didn’t get my period and felt like a god. I let anyone have me, wanted to see who would try. I fucked my idols until they weren’t my idols. Now I have my period again, and I understand the freedom was never real: I’ll let anyone have me. I fuck my idols until they aren’t my idols, but I just want them back.
*
I keep using my wand vibrator while watching videos of fully clothed women speaking softly, the only time sex feels safe. Keep falling asleep with the bulb filling the gap between my thighs like an egg. Perfect things have nothing alive in them, I keep noticing.
Francesca Kritikos is a Greek-American writer and editor. She wrote the poetry chapbooks IT FELT LIKE WORSHIP (Sad Spell Press, 2017), ANIMALS DON’T GO TO HELL (Bottlecap Press, 2021), and the full-length poetry collection EXERCISE IN DESIRE (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2022). Her poetry has appeared in Greek in Χάρτης and in English in Blush Lit, Autofocus, the Des Pair Quarterly, Witch Craft Mag, and elsewhere, and she also wrote a creative-critical essay about Joan Didion published by The London Magazine. She completed the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, in 2017, and she is currently based in Chicago.