A Big Lumpy Man with A Loud Voice

You are a big lumpy man with a loud voice. You sleep with whores and forget how to sleep with a woman who you are not paying. You sleep with such a woman. You forget to make a simple call to see how she is feeling, to thank her, to say how beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, special - all of this she is to you.

You sleep with whores but you don't forget to call. You decide not to call her. You are afraid of her because she is beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, special - all of this she is to you. You are afraid of her because she sleeps with you because she loves you, because she has always loved you and not because you will have to pay her to sleep with you. If you paid her, you could trust her not to love you. If she loves you, she cannot be trusted. She has always loved you, so she can never be trusted. You don't trust yourself.

You sleep with whores and afterward you leave them alone with their thoughts because this is what they want. You leave her alone with her thoughts because this is what you want. You leave her alone with her thoughts because your thoughts consume you. You leave her alone with her thoughts like a splinter left in her finger by a packing crate. You let it fester, until she begins to fear she has been treated like a whore.

You have not treated her like a whore. You treat your whores better.

You are a big lumpy man with a loud voice. You have a wife who won't sleep with you. Because of this, you must sleep with whores. You grow tired of sleeping with women who don't love you. You sleep with a woman who loves you, who has always loved you.

She writes to you, but you do not write back. You decide not to write back. You don't write to ask how she is feeling, to thank her, to say how beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, special - all of this she is to you. You don't write to her. You think of her. You have thought of her often. You have thought of her often in a way you have never told your wife.

When you see her again, you do not make eye contact with her. You do not talk to her. You talk to others. You do not look into her eyes. You do not want to see her. You do not want to see how beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, special - all of this she is to you. You do not want the others to see all of what she is to you.

You do not make eye contact. You do not make a way for her to contact you. You do not want her to contact you. You leave her alone until she finds a way to you, to find out what is going on with you.

You tell her what is going on with you. You tell her things in a great, mad rush. You do not have time, you will not make time, your time is short. You define the relationship, you negate the relationship, there will be no relationship because she is beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, special - all of this she is to you. You cannot have a relationship.

You do not know what she wants from you. You do not ask her. You tell her what she should want and you tell her she cannot have that with you. You confirm her worse fears. You do not make eye contact. She begins to fear she has been treated like a whore. You treat your whores better.

You leave her alone with a hole in her heart for a man she loves, for a man she has always loved. You leave her alone with a hole in her heart the size of a man - a big, lumpy man with a loud voice.

You sleep with whores and forget how to sleep with a woman who you are not paying. You forget to make the simple call to see how she is feeling, to thank her, to say how beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, special - all of this she is to you, could be to you, will not be to you. You are a big, lumpy man with a loud voice.

About the author:

Anna Reed is an architect and writer who lives in Berkeley, California. Reed's writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in print publications and web journals such as Alimentum, AlterNet, BluePrintReview, CleanSheets, The East Bay Express, Exquisite Corpse, Monkeybicycle, Rivets, The SoMa Literary Review, Verbicide and Waccamaw Journal. Reed is the road grunt, curator, creative director and CEO of Speckled Egg Studios which designs and publishes poetry broadsheets and produces literary readings throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Lately she has been designing animated poetry broadsheets. You can find Anna Reed and Speckled Egg on Facebook.