People Always Leave

Don’t lose yourself just because you found somebody.

One: Buy condoms. Buy them and keep them with you at all times, and use them before you are asked to use them. And use them every time. The peace of mind you allow your partner will free her to be vulnerable with you, and that, my son, is exactly what sex is about. Condoms are sexy. In fact, call buying condoms foreplay. (Footnote: If you are too embarrassed to buy condoms, you are not ready to have sex.) Two: Kissing is not merely foreplay. Spend entire evenings making out on the couch while fully clothed. Believe me, dry-humping rocks. Three: Sex is not just about friction. It’s about emotion. Stop trying to find her clitoris and find her heart. Because then she’ll help you find her clitoris. Four: If you really wanna know how to please a woman, ask her how she masturbates. Then do that. A lot. If she claims she doesn’t masturbate, offer to take her shopping for a vibrator so you can both learn the vocabulary of her body together. Five: Don’t put anything in her butthole you wouldn’t want in your own. (Footnote: Try a pinky finger, it’s kinda awesome.) Six: When you go down on her—and you will go down on her, and if you are my son, you will be amazing at it—tell her how good she tastes. Stop in the middle and kiss her deeply so she knows how good she tastes. Do the same when she goes down on you. Seven: A simple Google search will yield 1,327 euphemisms for male masturbation, yet only 23 for female masturbation. If guys spent less time jacking off and more time jilling off, this world would be a happier place. Eight: Everything you need to know about the importance of the clitoris is in the movie Star Wars. You are Luke Skywalker piloting your penis-shaped X-Wing Fighter deep inside her trench. Remember: seventy percent of all Death Stars cannot be blown up through penetration of the trench alone. It must be through focused contact with that little exhaust port at the top of the trench. Otherwise, any explosions you experience will be merely Hollywood special effects. Nine: Just because you come doesn’t mean she has, so don’t you dare come before her. Focus completely on your partner. Don’t worry about gettin’ yours, you’re a guy. You always get yours. Your job is to make sure she’s gettin’ hers. Ten: If sex with your partner lasts no longer than this poem, you are not making love. You are masturbating with her body instead of your hand. Shame on you. Go back to step one. You’ve got a lot of learning to do. Love, Dad.

Lust: The animalistic instinct that has broken more homes than any hurricane. The way my teeth would clash against your lip piercing when I kissed you too hard. Tight dresses and cheap alcohol and chain smoking as you exchange teenage heartbeats like trading cards. Gluttony: I gathered a pandemonium of your kisses and brought them to my lips. I let you feast until my lips were raw, the skin bleeding and breaking apart. I couldn’t hear anything except the hum of electricity as you devoured my body. You took everything. You drained the neon lights in my heart, leaving me in blackout. Greed: The sun and moon fighting for possession of the sky. Driving away from your latest mistake with her heart tucked under your sleeve. I saw the way you coveted the shadows spun by her eyelashes. I thought I could fill up my soul with your cheap alcohol. Sloth: The way you stopped bothering to kiss me when you met me at the train station. The slackened hinges on the trapdoor in my heart that I was always going to fix tomorrow. I haven’t slept without medication in years. It’s hard work staying alive, you know. Wrath: Sometimes I think you could start world consuming wars out of the rage inside of me. The way your kisses slackened to the point of repeated obligation. I don’t know when I went from being your lover to your defendant. I have to clench my fists to keep myself from tearing you out of my grey matter. Envy: The girl who came after me. The beating hearts of newborn babies with their fragile, untouched youths grasped tightly in the palm of their hand. Shipwrecks buried at the bottom of the ocean that stay where they are told. They understand that some history is never ready to come to the surface. Pride: A bitten tongue is less painful than a broken heart, I am told. I taught myself an automatic response for when people ask me if I am okay. I practiced it five times before I went to bed last night. My pride is the only backbone I have left. I will not be just another girl whose heart you broke.

I am so in love with you that there isn’t anything else.