Akshat Sharma

I’ve Pulled Some Hunky Guys in My Time

I spent a year
In South Texas.
I knew this guy
Who didn’t talk much,
His “y’all,” though:
Seven syllables too long.

Marine.
His gait
Should’ve been stiff,
But was music:
Red-dirt.

He wasn’t handsome.
I didn’t need handsome.
I, in fact,
Was the handsome.
His pecs were
The draw. 

He told me I was pretty.

What I wanted
Was a macho-manly adjective.
“Say that shit to your girlfriend!”
I’d snapped.

I didn’t want to know
That he had someone
At home.
But he shared it
Like she was nothing.

I thought about her,
Truly, a lot.
More than he did,
Maybe.

And I thought about her
All the time
When he gave me chlamydia.

That poor girl
I thought:
Does she know
About azithromycin,
Doxycycline,
Yoghurt with active cultures?

The tale I told myself, though,
Was that she was cheating, too.
Thus, Chlamydia trachomatis:
A teen on gap year
Bounced from genitalscape
To genitalscape,
Defiling native cultures.

It was a good story, that:
It precluded the possibility
Of him with another guy,
A younger guy,
A guy who didn’t snap
When he said “Pretty.”

“You’re gonna get dirty,”
He shrugged on the phone
“When you play in the mud.”

I’d called.
Calling, I felt,
Was intimate,
Appropriate,
Beseeming
When announcing
An STI.

“Fuck you, what mud?
I always douched!”
He chuckled:
“Takes a week to get clean.”

We did bang again,
Marine and I.
On day 8
Post-azithro.
No retest.

Listen: I was 28
In a new city (again)
Where I knew no one
(Again).

He wasn’t a talker,
But he stuck around.

Chlamydia is like that, too.