a virgin who can drive, or: hail mary, full of grace

fourteen

if you want to get archaic

about virginity,

i lost it to freeze tag,

my broken hymen

a small pink stain in my underwear afterwards.

sixteen

my siblings say

it’s cowardly for a man to ask to kiss me.

the only way a man is ever going to kiss me

is with my permission.

seventeen

a man sits down next to me in the cafeteria,

where i’m eating my lunch before class.

we have bio together,

and he seems safe enough.

for some reason, he mentions weed.

i wouldn’t know.

“you’ve really never gotten high?

not even at a party?”

no.

“what are you, a virgin?”

he thinks i’m older than i am.

it’s not meant to be inappropriate,

just a joke.

i am angry, but i also

tend to freeze, stammer,

act like i’m not the joke he just made.

i am.

i likely will always be,

the way he means it.

virgin is a dirty word.

virgin is for boring drinks without alcohol,

for women who don’t smoke weed,

who don’t want to indulge in the same things everyone else does.

twenty

the thing is:

i have never actually wanted to have sex

in the mechanical sense:

insert tab A into slot B.

the only way i have ever wanted to have sex

is in the technical sense,

as a dominant.

no black leather for me,

no obeisance,

or “mistress,”

but still:

waiting for permission,

no touching,

begging,

writhing,

all for me.

there are many kinds of sex

that do not involve the

full body

skin on skin

naked and exposed

touching

that i recoil from.

i wouldn’t call myself a virgin

once i’ve made a man wait for my permission,

bound him with silk and hemp,

extracted tears and begging

from eyes and mouth.

isn’t trust more intimate than anything else we can give?