RNDSP 4: Fear of Flying, Erica Jong (1973)

Zippers can fell like flower petals
Like in Laphu Makhong, sex workers fall for Chinese toys
Any kind of falling is scary
It’s scary to think about flying when I have pteromerhanophobia
It’s scary to get off the ground
But the trouble has been dictated already
If I don’t risk anything, I risk even more.

And the ads and whorescopes appear
You just take care of your smells, your hair,
your boobs, your eyelashes, your armpits,
your crotch, your stars, your scars,
your choice of Scotch in bars
And the knight in bloody armour will arrive
And fly away together to the moon

But what I wish is not what it is
Not what I want, not what I want not
In the name of fidelity, I sleep with my partner
Fuck the one you don’t want to fuck
And pretend he’s the one you do
And ignore the one you want to do.
That’s fidelity. That’s monogamy.
That’s called civilisation and its discontents
Oh! let the men bear my babies
But they are only interested in women in spurts 

The zipless fuck is absolutely pure
But I have never had one
And the society leers, for it is entirely made up of people who like no sex.

*Random Novels Distilled into Short Poems (RNDSP)
is a collection of bloody verses extracted from some favourite novels.
The series includes:

RNDSP 1: Post Office, Charles Bukowski (1971)
RNDSP 2: Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh (1993)
RNDSP 3: Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
RNDSP 4: Fear of Flying, Erica Jong (1973)
RNDSP 5: Imphal Amasoong Magi Ising Noongsitki Fibham, Loitongbam Pacha Meitei (Imphal and Its Environs, 1972)


Check the entire RNDSP series