I am valued only in triptych, in tandem with someone
and the services I can provide.
Rolling out like the underfoot mat
I so often am, belly up or arse in the air,
I aim to be agreeable and end up flat on my back,
fucked like a newlywed. Not enjoying it,

pins-and-needles numb throughout,
I am painless and a nameless victim of
the small deaths we endlessly subject ourselves to.
Unless I am alone in that game, too,
scrabbling for small ways of belonging
when I really own none. Puns run throughout
all I do and I’m enough glad to own them,
wry grin like a friendly invitation
to love-love-love me.
Turn me down like a coverlet,
fold me up til I cop to it, and own me.

—–

Sarah Pinkerton is a 26-year-old queer feminist woman living in Chicago; she’s studying to be a clinical psychologist and currently has her M.A.  She writes to stay sane enough, and she admires Dorothy Parker from way, way afar.