THE CLITORIS ALWAYS STAYS OUTSIDE by Laura Paul

The Clitoris Always Stays Outside

hush · issue 3

How can the clitoris be mysterious, subtle, weak-willed, or vulnerable when the clitoris always stays outside?

There’s a way that dicks hide, always going inside, being sucked into some sort of sheath or opening.

 

The digestive system has no closing, only temporaneous moments of enough.

 

Penises come and go, weaving into all sorts of textures, like silk thread, like bidets and wet and warmth, like terry cloth, like looped and uncut threads, like  assholes and mouths, like any sort of opening devoid of too many sharp metal teeth.

 

Straight and long genitalia that curves and bends. Always exploring in order to find a  lace to close down and rest. Always a retreat.

 

An end of the day sale, a discount store that locks the doors shut. Slithering into bed, hoping for a clean place to stay the night. Limited by four walls and enough. Straightforward, and too straight. Undraped.

 

But the clitoris is no intrepid explorer hungry for a dormitory or bergerie or refuge.

 

The clitoris, that which cannot be penetrated, that which cannot be wholly sucked.

 

Glands that are seen, but never fully seen. Asking for repetition, but also undulation,  pulsation, difference, contrast, fantasy, back and forth, &&&&&

 

&so avoidant

&so impossible

&so dominant&multidimensional

&so tall, but long, but wide, but fat, but

 

The clitoris always stays outside.

Laura Paul

Laura Paul's writing has been published by The Brooklyn Rail, Coffin Bell Journal, Dream Pop Journal, Entropy Magazine, FIVE:2:ONE, grama, Luna Luna Magazine, Shirley Magazine, and featured at the West Hollywood Book Fair, Los Angeles Zine Fair, Interactive Fiction Competition, and Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction. In 2017, her first book of poetry, The Cool Wasteland, was published by FLAP Books.