I Can Be a Better You

by Tarryn Fisher

We were products of our earliest experiences, replicating the ways we were taught to love, and fuck, and interact with humanity. Some of us broke free of our pasts; some of us weren’t that clever.

When I first knew I wanted Jolene, I was still in a relationship with her best friend. I’d look. Men look even when they say they aren’t. We are sexual creatures: long legs, the outline of nipples against flimsy fabric, the cupping of jeans against an ass—we look and our dicks get hard. We’re wired that way. Some of the more self-righteous men, the fucking pious ones, say they don’t look. They say they avoid the appearance of evil, aka the type of women who make their dicks hard. It’s not women who make my dick hard; it’s my ability to control their emotions.

I was bored with love. What is love anyway? Most of us had no fucking clue because our parents gave us shit examples of it: prude, nonverbal, stiff; or on the opposite end of the spectrum: chaotic, uncommitted, inconsistent. Or maybe just divorced. So, we flounced around in adulthood, taking notes from romantic comedies … or porn. Love is flowers! Love is grand gestures! Love is trips to Paris hand in hand! Love is her opening her mouth whenever you want to stick your dick inside. Love was whatever you decided it was, and if you’d had a narrow window to peek through, you were really fucked.

But then you became a mother, and all of that changed. Love was sacrificing your selfish nature for someone you were more committed to than yourself.

And what did it all boil down to really? That Darius loved people who loved him? That he was like a needy puppy most of the time. He didn’t see that as a weakness, but I did. It was pathetic to watch him swoon over attention. People who he’d claim to hate five minutes before became his best friends once they expressed how smart and handsome he was. And his career choice, being the all-wise, all-knowing doctor who could see aptly into your soul. The patients worshipped him, and he sat in the burgundy wingback chair I bought for his office and relished it. Grow a pair, you know? Stick with your gut and don’t be groomed by a little attention.

When I walked into the kitchen he was waiting for me, leaning against the counter staring at his feet. He has small feet, I thought bitterly. I wanted to laugh at how childish my thoughts were. For instance, if Fig was fucking him, she could do a lot better … in length and width.

I arrived before he did, so I paid for a tea and carried it over to a scarred table in the corner. Someone had scratched Mona is a whore into the wood. I stirred my tea and glared down at the message. Another example of the fucked up way society viewed women. All the men who slept with Mona were left untouched, while our girl Mona was being called out. I took out the pocket knife I kept in my bag and scratched so are all the men she fucked underneath it.

What could you do? Life was weird; people were twisted. You had to make the best of it, or roll over and die. You could knit it out, or scrapbook it out, or CrossFit it out. My way was to write it out.

I’d always liked the name Tarryn…