The thing I meant to say to him before I forgot is, the root of magic is in the heart.

Yes it’s a line from a Nora Roberts book. Don’t judge. Where do you think I learned about sex? From other men?

Anyway the root is the heart and sex, sex is a kind of magic.

Sex is, I look at you and you look at me and something happens that’s bigger than us both. Sex is, I touch you and what I touch is deeper than your skin. Sex is, I can do the same things with you as I could do with anyone else, but they would mean something entirely different.

Love is wrestling with my own inner demons, rather than wrestling angels. Sex is my reward.

Sex is not something women give men because you move us in to our new apartment or because you give us an A or a back rub or a kiss we don’t deserve. Sex is not what happens when you try to love someone because she likes you so much and love is what you are supposed to give her in return and so is desire. You can drain the sea or kill all your enemies and sex can still be out of reach.

Sex is not a thing that exists in my body. I did not come up with the concept just to harm you. I am not telling one long joke that your body is in on. You are not the punchline of any joke I would tell.

I make bad decisions, sometimes. I say things I don’t mean. I am not a goddess. I am not Womankind. I am not the Woman inside your mind judging you. She is your demon and so only you can defeat her.

They say Cassandra was cursed to tell only the truth but never be believed. They say it’s because she wouldn’t let Apollo rape her. Because of real life stories like these I lie to men I am afraid of. I let them believe that wanting them is the source of this look on my face that is really only terror.

Men stab women who say no, remember?

Men require we flirt back then take it too far and don’t ask and don’t stop when we say no. Men hate us and mock us and spread rumors about us if we say no.

So I became a dybbuk and a liar. I became traumatized and broken because it was easier than navigating situations I could not win. I am Jewish and curvy and female in a society that says that makes me a whore.

I just wanted to touch you until the broken pieces of my body reassembled into something more than only just my own individual body.

I just thought maybe if you looked at me, if you really truly saw me, I could mirror back to you the truth.

Your sexuality was never broken, love. You just live in a land of broken people telling you that sex is a procedure you should do to assert dominance over your body and contempt for your heart.

I said, lose control.

I meant, you are saving me from your body at the cost of my own heart.

Jeanette Winterson said love is what it always is, you look at me and want me and I don’t turn away.

Close, but not quite.

Love is what it always is. When I look at you overwhelmed by wanting you, you let me tell you so, in my own way in my own time. And when I do tell you, whatever I tell you, you find a way, however foolish or crazy or impossible it seems, you find some delirious hopeful skyborn way, to trust.