GOOD PUSSY IS HARD 2 FIND & Natural Disaster
by Eleanor West
Ithaca College
Eleanor West is a first-year English and Writing major at Ithaca College, where she is an Art and Photography editor for Stillwater Magazine. Writing and reading poetry is her greatest love, and she was a part of the Spoken Arts department of the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts for four years. She intends to become a Writing or English professor.
GOOD PUSSY IS HARD 2 FIND
I wanted it to be perfect. So I gave you what you wanted (sexually), and let my last little dream
die. When I wanted perfection over dreams, I knew I was finally a woman. In my darkest
womanly fantasies, I reimagine my hair, my eyes, my genitals. Boys, be honest. What makes
a girl instantly unattractive? Boys, be honest. Have I made myself ugly? I eat cowberries,
red deer, roe deer. My hair has thinned. My titties have shrunk. The distance between my head
and the ceiling has slowly closed. I grieve with a straight back, knees locked, feet pointed
forward. I think of music as noise in my ears. In the back of my mind, a large man wanders
around. He uses spit to make his suit of armor shiny. He stares down all of my lovers, exclaims,
This town ain’t big enough for the both of us! When he sees an open field, he thinks of war. He’s
scary. Scary like a teenager is. Scary like everyone knowing something that you don’t. And I
don’t feel safe in my itchy itchy skin. I apologize. I know this isn’t the girl you fell in love with. I
wish things were different. I wish I could put simply before all of these words. I wish lamplight
penetrating a crystal chipmunk was enough. I wish a toddler’s handmade paper candy cane was
enough. For me. And all of you. Good people. Bad people. Outside people. Inside people. What
did I want for my people? I wanted us to be perfect. I wanted us to rethink the seasons. I wanted
us to rethink the animal kingdom. I wanted manhood to be something besides an island in the
sky. Floating separately from the rest of history. What’s that thing men tell boys of a certain age?
Women are friends, not food. Ha. I used to wear a rose quartz bracelet. I used to wear body-
shaping pantyhose under my pants. I wanted to be loved. I wanted it to be perfect. And it sure
looked the part. But I hated nighttime. I hated daytime. I hated my bedroom. I hated my clothes.
I hated the way hungry felt on the tip of my tongue. I hated the way Neil Young murmured I
want to see you dance again... And I hated how it felt when that last dream died. I’ve never
hated anything more.
Natural Disaster
“The first time I ended the world, I was 16.” -James Tynion IV
It had been two or three months since the breakup. He still had the polaroids
in his wallet. There wasn’t much to them. A blue wall,
a laundry basket, a dresser. My naked body centered between the doorframe
and the corner. A few different poses. I had shorter, darker hair,
a bonier back. He was behind the camera,
learning how to be a man. Learning how to have nothing to lose
but his weapon. He preferred virgins. He was into bondage. He would search my phone
while I slept. He was just smooth enough
to swallow the year whole. I wanted
to know everything about him. I got what I wanted.
Almost. Desire, in this instance,
is nothing more than a preamble to pain. The rhythm of the bus,
the boar-bristle brush, the salty pink crystals
wrapped in cling film. I had given up
on telling God how to do his job. What I mean by this
is that I let my plants die and I stopped washing my face. Getting better
required Genius and Genius stopped coming by a long time ago. Genius
changed her number and moved to a different city.
One where turquoise pools are common
and there are spaces separating the buildings.
One where even the poor have wrap-around porches
and houses made of brick. There are oceans and mountains
between Genius and me. So much distance that it puckers.
So much wind that you wouldn’t hear me scream.
I make the most of it. The warm darkness,
the oil spills, all of the clouds with names I don’t know. The white rooftops,
the men in suits, the half-dead pelican with its one milky eye. The story is almost over,
and it doesn’t end with a glass bottle against my head,
or a blind spot in my vision,
or my cough staining a clean lake red-orange. I don’t get those polaroids back,
and there are no redemptive speeches. No swelling in the music. I always manage
to count the number of fingers held up to me. I am not a special case.
When I say loss, I mean extinction.
When the moral collapses, it collapses around all of us.
Interview with the Author
What pieces inspired you to start writing poetry?
The first collection of poetry that made an impression on me was Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds. The second was Richard Siken’s Crush. I liked both because they made me cry.
What theme do you find yourself constantly writing about in your works?
I find myself mentioning God in almost everything I write. Recently, I’ve been writing about the internet, animals, sunlight, gender, big things vs. small things, popularity, food, fairy tales, the concept of home, and physical attraction.
What do you think are important elements in thought provoking poems?
I love poems that are a little bit funny. Eileen Myles’ An American Poem, in which the poet identifies as a Kennedy, is powerful in its bizarre irony. Tongo Eisen-Martin’s use of sarcasm in his work is also really compelling to me.
What role do you think poetry has on our society today?
I think everyone should casually write poetry. We don’t have many integrated opportunities for emotional release, if any, and poetry is one of the most accessible art forms out there.