Instant Pussy: looks strange but tastes just fine

Polite was taught to me at a very young age as keep your fucking mouth shut–anything beyond please and thanks, lid on it. I remember quite vividly the struggle this produced in even asking for basic things. Like, “May I use the restroom?” or “Can I have something to drink?” I would sit there, the words stuck and anxiety growing. In my head I would be saying, ok dummy on the count of 10, say it out loud.

Time moves painfully slow when you’re having this sort of mental fuckery–might as well call it torture. The helplessness of being a child in an adult world, amplified. When we are babies, we do not have the recognition that soon we will have the ability to communicate our needs clearly with words. Once you know… and yet that ability has been taken away from you for whatever reason, it is torture.

I’m not crying about it anymore, externally or internally. It is at the crux of what made me a writer. The power of words–what you say and how you say it, that stuff goes deep down into the bones. I consider it a severe abuse of this power– twisting words with an agenda to manipulate, to control, to subvert. Today I am grateful that embracing my own voice on the page, evermore, helps me to say it out loud.

if somehow we didn’t

have wings that clip
to the black surface
of our waking lives
we might soar
instead of
stutter
at the light
ahead
we might
take that road
into night
unknown
with less trepidation
than ever before

they say
she is not afraid
like it’s a bad thing
when they are really bold
they say
she is fearless
in a tone unkind

and quite noticeably
envious

“if somehow we didn’t” was previously published in Instant Pussy #69 — available here http://www.lulu.com/shop/misti-rainwater-lites/instant-pussy-69/paperback/product-22525443.html Contributors include Ben John Smith, Jay Passer, Rusty Barnes, J.D. Nelson among others…

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Michele McDannold is the author of Stealing the Midnight from a Handful of Days, a book of poetry available from PUNK HOSTAGE PRESS. She was the Editor-in-Chief at Red Fez Publications for five years and is currently the editor/publisher at Citizens for Decent Literature. She has an extensive collection of flannel and rubber chicken heads. For more, please visit michelemcdannold.com.

Bitch in Heat, He Calls Me

by Misti Rainwater-Lites

Before hooking up with the ex-boyfriend I was well-versed in matters of the heart. I’d lived with three different men, been married to two of them, cheated on two of them with countless online affairs, and fallen hard in unrequited love with another writer. I wrote a novel about it called Bullshit Rodeo.

Before hooking up with the ex-boyfriend, a man I foolishly and shamelessly refer to as The Love of My Life, I’d come to terms with all the labels. When I was still a virgin and a wallflower and attending Fredericksburg High School I was called “skank” because I made the egregious error of calling up the captain of the football team one night and inviting him over to my house to watch movies. He shot me down so I called his best friend, another football player. I think the worst that can be said of me is that I lack common sense. I don’t think my high sex drive deserves any ugly labels but I’ll take them all and turn them upside down.

I took a picture of my ass and cunt a couple of years ago and sent it to Ben John Smith for Horror Sleaze Trash. I have more male friends than female friends at Facebook and I don’t give it much thought. You can Google Image “Misti Rainwater-Lites” and find all kinds of tasty surprises. I could give a shit.

I refuse to buy into the puritanical judgments, the hypocrisy, the easy dismissals. “Well, she’s obviously starved for dick flavored attention.” Back in 2008 when I was living in a rodent and roach infested crack whore shack in Port Arthur, Texas, falling apart from postpartum depression and anxiety, I stupidly confided in another female writer at MySpace. I told her that I had crushes on various small press writers and editors. She took it upon herself to e-mail a transcript of our conversation to my husband. I have no problem with the word “cunt” as an insult. That chick is a CUNT, all caps.

Yesterday I referred to my own mother as a cunt, not to her face but to my ex-husband. I’m not proud of words thrown around in extreme anger. Plenty of words have been thrown at me in moments of intense hatred. Cunt. Bitch. Whore. Slut. Skank. White trash. My ex-boyfriend just sent me a poison pen e-mail in which he accused me of dating like a “bitch in heat.” After I left him the last time (we had a tumultuous relationship…I left him and returned countless times) he sent me an e-mail encouraging me to date other men. “No te claves ruca,” he wrote. Translation: don’t get stuck on no bitch. I didn’t want to sit around my apartment listening to Billie Holiday songs, crying to the moon over a man I loved who could not or would not love me back, so yes. Goddamn right, motherfucker. I hit the ground running.

I joined match.com. I joined eHarmony. I joined ashleymadison. I fucked one guy and let a man I was not remotely attracted to pay me $40 to strip and watch him jack off. So I’m both a slut and a whore. And yes, I am also a bitch in heat. I am also the most romantic person I know.

I have offered up countless prayers and white magic spells begging the powers that be for true love. True love is a mutual exchange of energy. I’ve lived too many Billie Holiday songs. Unrequited love no longer holds any appeal for me. I want a man who craves me. If I’m not a mermaid swimming inside his bloodstream, none for me, thanks. Until I find the motherfucker, I have no problem fucking whoever appeals to me and making the occasional random dollar. I have lived with four different men. I have considerable baggage.

I will not settle.

I will not exchange vows with a man unless I have tears of joy in my eyes. So feel free to make jokes about Instant Pussy and call me any names that are convenient and roll with ease off the unthinking tongue. Like our boy Walt Whitman I contain multitudes. I’m dangerous like that. Toss the ball this way and believe me, baby….I’ll catch it and throw it back.

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Misti Rainwater-Lites is the author of Bullshit Rodeo, available from amazon.com. She lives in San Antonio. Visit her blog Chupacabra Disco for more.