Blue This, Blue That

By Daniel Helman Lee

I stack up my ‘no’s like coins in a casino, lose them in one go

No more loose change, no coin to exchange, no deal to arrange where what I want goes.

But I want to know how you cheated me.

Three ‘no’s I gave, three ‘no’s I paid, three ‘no’s now lay as dead weight in your ears, three ‘no’s you refuse to hear,

Three ‘no’s cleared from the air as if they were never there,

Never muttered with a stumbling breath beneath speech, then uttered with the words jamming out my teeth – unrestrained, escaping from the horrors of remaining silent– then ringing loud a sounding alarm of ‘no’. So, tell me now:

Where did my three ‘no’s go?

I want to know how you cheated me,

How you promised me anything I say goes. Vowed me one ‘no’

Was enough, but even after three, you bluffed - turned a deaf ear.

Pretended my tears weren’t from you. Wiped them, dried them, said ‘there’s nothing to fear’.

How dare – how dare—you lie.

You swore the choice was mine.

You stole what was rightfully mine – you lie

To me and to yourself.

The depths to which you struggle to come up with excuses – blue this, blue that –

How many breaths did you disgrace to convince me of your decency?

You lie to me, and then make me lie

Sprawled on the bed. Coerce me to undress, bare my chest,

Peel off my layers, my barriers, my protection

From what you call ‘affection’ –funny how we don’t have the same vocabulary–

And then comes your infection, my objection, your erection, my objection, your injection, my objection, your ejection, my–

I can’t anymore. I can’t with your

‘Do this, do that

Blue this, blue that,

Blow this, blow that

Cradle my ballsack.’

My ‘no’s blew through one ear and never came back.

You live in sensual bliss. You live in a world of ‘consensual’ kisses,

In a world where one ‘yes’ – whispered to pretend that this is consent – outweighs everything and anything else.

I want to know: how did you hear my yes, barely a breath, but not my ‘no’s, uttered clear?

I want to know: how do you get the best of both?

How do you savor robbed pleasure, then convince yourself that your sloppy measure of consent is accurate?

Does it soothe your guilt?

Does it soothe your soul to think

A coerced word of ‘yes’ erases freely given ‘no’s ?

I guess so. I guess it does soothe you to think so.

In fact, you even manage to twist the tale, make me the villain who failed

To find it in herself to want to save the drowning hero–

You, a hero in need of saving, who pleads and pleads for me to save him from the depraved depths of despair of–

‘Blue balls’, he says.

Yes, my choice to say ‘no’ is a wrong one when faced with these two words.

These two words bear the weight of his world, a weight relieved only by the sight of my bare chest. Yes, this is what he says:

That I am selfish for refusing my flesh as feast for his eyes and hands and other things. I am the source of his suffering, and only I can stop it.

‘It’s no sacrifice’, he says for me. There is no price to pay, when my body was made to embody his pleasure. And so he says shamelessly,

‘Do this, do that

Blue this, blue that,

Blow this, blow that

Cradle my ballsack.’

He uses excuses to do as he pleases, to seize what he sees, to ease in the holes he meets. He forces me unto my knees, I swallow

My ‘no’s, fragmented to pieces, pieces I struggle to puzzle back whole.

And anyway, what can I do when I'm caged, my head on the floor—your hands on the floor—my eyes on the door—the lock in the door—a stone in my chest your mouth on my breast—

I close my eyes when it comes, the warm, sticky mess you force-feed my senses to feast in excess.

Yet still, yet still, you have the audacity to tell me I should do more.

That you’re the one working, while I lay and do nothing. You’re the one jerking, while I’m there ‘enjoying’.

I’m taking, you’re giving.

How dare - how dare—you say this when the truth is

I’m aching—you’re heaving

I’m breaking—you’re thieving

I’m shaking I’m grieving

I’m bleeding—you’re deceiving

Yourself into believing

Ugly lies that let you sleep right at night.

You do it all until you reach bliss

And then comes–

The switch.

‘I’m sorry’. You bring me coffee, you tell me you love me,

As if that washes away the filth, the stink, the stench of the memories.

You say it won’t happen again, won’t let the blue reign again, you say all the words you need to say

Even though we both know nothing will change,

It’s only a matter of when

You say, ‘let’s play again’.

By Daniel Helman Lee