I'm writing about sex and I don't even feel weird about it. Okay, I feel weird about it.

While lying in bed this morning, I suddenly had a flashback to my sexually adventurous mid-twenties. I was seeing this guy with whom I had a very intense sexual connection. It seemed like the perfect situation to try all the things I wanted to try, to do what I was unsure about, to ask for what I really wanted. To experience something quivering and resonant. So one time, as we were, um, doing dirty work at the crossroads, I said, in a voice that I hoped communicated what I wanted, "Tell me about the night." I thought he would understand, since he wanted resonance too (I think). Instead he just got confused and unsure and stopped, and asked if I was talking about a threesome. At which point I had to say, "Never mind, I wanted poetry." And it is a bad time whenever you have to say "never mind" during sex. But I guess people aren't used to being asked for poetry during sex, so I can't hold it against him. A note to everyone, if someone asks you to tell them about the night during sex, they want poetry. They want it to fall from your tongue, ooze from your pores. They want to taste it.

Thinking back on this, I realized that what I really wanted in my mid-twenties was art in sex, poetry in sex, presence in sex, movement in sex. Not threesomes. Not making out with friends because you're adventurous and bored. Not ambiguous sexual relationships. More poetry, less threesomes.

That should have been the motto of my mid-twenties. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that. "Hey Wendy, I'm you from the future! You are about to enter a very puzzling, rambling time in your life. Just remember this, 'More poetry, less threesomes.' Say it with my now, 'More poetry, less threesomes.' Got it? Remember that. It will serve you well."

But I probably wouldn't have listened to myself, anyway. Hell, I didn't listen to myself in the present in my mid-twenties, so why would I listen to myself from the future?

Thanks to Richard and Kitty for the "dirty work at the crossroads" euphemism.