Men Are Visual
Men are visual
Women are relational
It is difficult for a man
to stay faithful to his wife
Your mom is more attractive
than 90%
of other women
but a lot of women
let themselves go
Your aunts used to be
fairly attractive until
they let themselves go
Some men like big women
but I’ve never understood that
I got the prettiest girl
in your mom’s family
She works hard
to stay in shape
Men start out less attractive
than women when they’re young
but women lose
so much beauty when
they age
There’s things you can do
with makeup
and exercise and diet
are really important
It’s really hard for men
to stay faithful
especially with the internet
There was this computer game
about Ancient Egypt
historical educational
fascinating
I had to stop playing the game
The women were
incredibly attractive
They looked so real
But it was a little
too much for me to handle
The Egyptian women
in the computer game
they were beautiful
Central Part
New York, New York
At sixteen I graduated high-school,
homeschooled by hook and by crook.
Mommy and I flew north clutching tissues
and Broadway tickets to see Les Misérables.
I hated myself in flip-flops. I felt unworthy
of God’s favorite city. All day long, I texted other people.
My mother watched me with starving eyes—
her words tumbled helter-skelter from Clinique-plummed lips.
She’d planned our breakfast in Greenwich Village,
bravely hailed three cabs, unclipped tens and twenties from her underwear.
Who would I become here?
I wore possibility like a crown as we single-filed under scaffolding,
jaywalked with crowds, gawped at tenements.
I wanted to leave her.
In the theater, she whispered, “Isn’t this exciting?”
“Ssh!” I barked. You can still hear me snap
on the voice memo I bootlegged cradling
my phone in sweaty hands as my heart orgasmed
to the Act 1 solos. On the flight home, I told her I was sorry.
Last time we talked, she still described the day as “so much fun!”
Sophie Farthing (she/her) is a queer poet and artist based in Columbia, South Carolina. A proud native of the Carolinas, she explores the minutiae of Southern religion, domestic abuse, and queer domesticity. Her poetry has recently appeared in outlets including Right Hand Pointing, Moist Poetry Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Feral. Her artwork in miniatures has been featured in orangepeel Magazine and was recently featured in the Queerfish Exhibition at the Columbia Museum of Art as part of Columbia’s Famously Hot Pride.
