The First Time You Fuck Your Best Friend's Mother
The first time
you fuck
your best friend’s mother
you really really didn’t mean to.
The second time
you fuck
your best friend’s mother
you tell yourself
it’ll never happen again—
but the third time
you fuck
your best friend’s mother
you are willing to admit
that maybe
this is the formation of a habit.
You are nineteen
and she is raven-haired and has legs that go for days
and she has given birth
to your favorite person in the whole world.
It seems almost logical
that you two might come together—
The fourth time, you begin to rationalize
how this isn’t really hurting anyone.
Her husband is gone 9 months out of the year
and you are so smitten
and confident
and nineteen
that the fifth time
you push her up against the wall
and bury your face in her throat.
Under the ringing chime of your belt buckle,
she lets out a little sound of pleased surprise
and you think
you could have lived your whole life
and never heard that sound
but now,
the lack of it is going to ring in the voice
of every twenty year old
who is afraid to ask for what she really wants from you
or every twenty-one year old
who wants to have sex with the lights off
or every twenty-two year old
who fakes an orgasm
because the world has taught her such self-possession is unseemly—
It’s not that you’re in love with her.
It’s just that you’ve been spoiled.
After the thirtieth time,
you lie in her husband’s bed and realize
that you would gladly let this ruin you
and
that it very well might.
You put these hours with her
behind a door
so you do not come to your best friend stranger-lipped
or as a liar.
When he asks you about women,
or tells you about love,
you open the door
and the only thing that comes out is some made-up name
and her black hair
the same as his
the way her mouth has the same cupid’s bow,
how they smile the same,
how much you care about him
and how differently you care about her.
How she has given you this secret to keep
like you are an oyster
and all she has ever wanted
is a necklace.
Melissa Newman-Evans has been the waitress and a regular reader at the Boston Poetry Slam since 2007, and has been designing chapbooks for individuals in the community for even longer. Currently, she provides graphic design for the Boston Poetry Slam, the Encyclopedia Show: Somerville, Bicycle Comics poetry books, and will be Art Director for the upcoming National Poetry Slam 2013 in Boston. She was a member of the 2012 Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge slam team, and has headlined poetry shows around the northeast. If you wanted a tonic and gin, she thinks you should have ordered it that way.
