All I Want by Joni Mitchell
Dear [REDACTED]
I want to tell you about when I had crabs so you’ll believe I’m sexually adventurous. I wasn’t fun and he wasn’t fun and the “sex” wasn’t fun. The night kept reaching points where it should end. But I let it slip along. I decided to let him pay for the cab. I decided to let him take 45 minutes to cum on my stomach. I decided to wait two minutes after cumming to let him know it was time for him to leave. I decided not to curse him out after discovering he had given me crabs. I decided it was time for more abstinence.
I want to tell you about getting stitches so you begin to think about how many holes I have on my body. I can always add more. Create another orifice for you to pierce.
I want to tell you about my experiences topping so you understand that I like to feel in control.
I want you to know that when I sucked that man’s cock in his entry way I wasn’t thinking of you. I could have attached your name to him, because he never introduced himself. When he told me to cum on his cock at 5 am and suck it off. When I did and he came soon after. Right down my throat, whispering something I couldn’t hear, something about daddy this or daddy that. He didn’t cum very much which I understand. He seemed like the type of man who needs to cum a hundred times a day. Are you that kind of man? If you are please know I’m always around to watch, always around to take some small role. He kissed me after and sent me on my way, walking home legs shaking as the sun went up I want you to know that the shame I felt later wasn’t your fault. It was boring to me, and that’s why I never told you about it, baby.
I want you to know that just because I talk about sex so publicly, with such ease, always casually disclosing something, I’m afraid. Get me alone in a room and I become a clam. If you want the pearl you’re just going to have to say I love you baby, I love you baby, I love you baby, into the shell over and over, until it opens wide enough for you baby, until it’s calm enough for you my love.
I want to tell you about the immense attraction I feel to this invented canon of West Coast Gay People who instagram. I created it. A lot of this canon is built upon the foundation of Tex by Beau Rice. A nonfiction book that archives a relationship, or a friendship, or something that only queer people know how to do, between two men. It’s beautiful. It features a way of speaking, a way of being slutty, a way of being anxious, a way of disclosing one’s adderall addiction, that I find intoxicating. I want to be like these boys who want to be like these cum dumps, who read theory and work in bookstores and don’t know what they’re doing. I can’t have an adderall problem anymore and become anxious with a cock in my ass.
There’s a room in the midwest that’s always the perfect temperature all the time, there’s a porch right off of it, we smoke in the room and don’t talk about much of anything, just drifting. I want to be in that room all the time.
I want to go for a light jog with you and your dog, I want people to see us and think they’re happy. I want to grow more and more beautiful while with you, I want to be set for when you leave.
I want you to teach me how to ride a bike, how erotic would that be. Trusting you. Not being afraid to fall off the bike and slice my leg open. I’d let it happen, let you take care of me, I want you to teach me everything you know. It’s not too much to ask, why would you say that to me? Why would you try to hurt me like that. Let’s bike to the grocery store together. What do we need to survive the week? I want all of that for us baby.
I want to learn to ride horses so we can ride them together.
I want you to know that today when I was boarding the plane I was thinking about flying first class, how idiotic it is to do that for a two hour flight, how I would only ever fly like that with you, baby. My head on your shoulder, I’ll try not to drool.
I want a big house in a small town, where you wrastle cattle and I wrastle the kitchen.
I want you to misgender me sometimes. Not on purpose. Not maliciously. Not because I enjoy suffering still. I just want you to sometimes forget I exist in the ways I’ve told you. I want to be reminded of others’ definitions of me, specifically yours. Show me where I go. Show me my place, handsome.
I want you to be so wealthy that by loving you, I have to decide whether or not to become a class traitor. You know what choice I would make.
I want you to know that the us that sits and talks in a cafe about whether or not we should fuck, whether you should cheat on your new filmmaker boyfriend with me or not, that’s my favorite us. I love it when we talk. All I want for the rest of my life is the moment where you tell me that you don’t think I’m hot, that you know I’m hot, that people come up to you in LA and tell you how hot I am, without ever knowing how you manipulated me into being the best version of myself I can be. How you used to fuck me raw in the middle of the night, how you used to stage my cum shots, how you showed me amateur porn and told me it was the best, how you’ve so rarely been wrong. I want you to know I’m happy you’re here and in my life, whether we fuck or not. I want you to know I love you.
I would like it if the reader of this took into account that I’m very smart and full of potential. I would like it if you did too. I would like it if you remembered that I’m 22 and that I’m doing a lot. I really am. Even on the days when I sleep too much and don’t do anything but take a too expensive Uber to work, I’m still worth something. Do you think I’m worth something? Do you want this? Do you want me? I want me.
I want you to know, that you’re not one person and you’re every person I’ve ever thought I could love, you’re 150 people, all at once, and sometimes you’re just one, but you’re only that one when you’re sitting in front of me. Or standing. When I can see your calves. When I can see your eyes. When I can be near those brown eyes, those green eyes, I want clarity and I want nuance and I want cum and I want boundaries and I want writing, but mainly, I want to talk to you, so answer your fucking phone.
xx Jo
Jo Barchi is a writer/editor/ice cream scooper living in Chicago. Their work has been published by/is forthcoming from Hobart, Joyland Magazine, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. They are currently working on a manuscript of epistolary essays. They can be found on twitter @theyarenotaboy.
