Devon Webb

cw: sexual trauma

I LIKE KISSING MEN BUT I DON’T WANNA FUCK THEM


I cannot leave your house
cos I smoked too much weed
after too many vodka cranberries
& it rendered me immobile
I fall into sleep like a black hole
it surrounds me the way
a thick inky sky
snuffs out the horizon
my dreams see me lost in bright darkness

Two in the morning
I no longer feel like I am drowning
sorry I stole your bed,
you’re welcome in it
you’re welcome to touch me…
in the kind of way that makes me feel connected
but it always, inevitably leads to more

It’s not you it’s me
it’s the way my trauma is localised
in all the most private parts of my body
buried beneath the feeling
of when I could reveal myself without that
sick dizzy sensation of dysphoria
I’m not the girl I once was
accumulating conquests without
consequences
or so I thought
at the time

It’s not that I dislike men
I like their strength & power
I like it when they hold me down
& I am helpless
why do I so like feeling helpless
am I just climatised
or reclaiming something?

It’s not that I dislike men
I kiss them with as much hunger as I used to
I press my body against theirs
like a promise
that I could feel safe here…
So why do I not feel safe here?
why am I so sick
of their stench clinging to my skin
washing off this sin in the shower
the memory of him down the drain

why do I hate the way
their cocks are like drawn swords
ready for battle,
ready to dance
demanding my submission
my ecstasy…

I cannot come for you
this hole is home to too much hurt
it is instinctively afraid
shying away from the song it sings
sometimes, only sometimes

It’s not you it’s me
it’s the silence down inside me
it’s the waiting for a time when my body will
sparkle again
with a certain kind of innocence
…call it longing,
call it love

Call me wounded virgin
losing something every time I give
call me healing as I take it back
my purity, piece by piece.

cw: heavy sexual content, SA, pain, slut-shaming, non-consensual unprotected sex

MY BACKWARDS LIBERATION

When I was younger
sex felt so empowering
I lost my virginity in a friend’s bed
at the age of seventeen
it felt so… cool, & exciting
& a little painful but
we’d figure that all out

I wanted to scream & shout
with the significance of it all
I wanted to tell the whole world
that I was a new woman now

& for the next year, maybe two
every time a man found me sexy enough to sleep with
it was like a little victory
it was something… validating
it was a lesson I couldn’t learn by myself
front-row student at the school of lust

I was a wannabe pornstar then
let them fuck me the way they wanted to
moaning & saying shit like
harder, harder
but turning away so they didn’t see me cry

It hurt & I didn’t know why
didn’t understand why I was so dry
after um
fourteen seconds of foreplay

Didn’t get why they said
that I liked to get around
when I’d go from first base to home run
just for kicks, just for fun
even when it wasn’t much fun

My list got longer & my
longing went nowhere
cos they’d say this was nothing,
you’re just a fine piece of ass

& I got a reputation
that stuck like glue
that I spent all the next years
trying to undo

I went celibate for seven months
after a friend of mine put my hand on his dick
then said that he didn’t give me permission
to get in his space as anything more than a friend

I felt so used &
so abused

The celibacy went pretty well actually
after being taken advantage of for so long
after being dicked down & thrown out
with my abandonment issues & yeast infections
I was finally keeping my body to myself
because I wanted to

I moved cities & met boys
& said I’ll kiss you but not sleep with you
& they’d ask why
well, I was waiting
for the one I wanted to give it all to

I found him kinda quickly
he invited me home but I left too early
cos I was waiting
I was moving slowly

But girls get jealous
& a month later I was slut-shamed so violently
it sunk so deep down inside me
I couldn’t get it out

& it was ironic, actually
cos apparently I wanted to fuck every man
when I’d been holding out for one
guess the game was only played & never won

It was a trauma I didn’t realise
would take so long to leave me
slut & whore defacing my identity
till I saw it in my sleep
the very reputation
from which I was trying to get free

There was one boy who was there for me
he said ‘may I?’ & kissed me
& I wasn’t into it but
so broken, & so alone
that I gave my body to him
just to feel seen

I fell in love with him eventually
I pieced my broken trust back together
& gave it to him
I built everything on that trust
all my healing

& then he betrayed me
& ripped it all apart
cos he didn’t use a condom even though I
told him to from the start

& then he tried to blame me
& shame me
gaslighting me like I didn’t know
that I was too broken
to engage in intimacy in any other way

After that it all hurt
after that it was all confusing
& terrifying
crying in the bed of another one-night stand
I didn’t really want a part in

& all my past came back to me
all the times they called me a tease
& I would fuck them
just cos it was easier

All the times I knew they didn’t want me
for anything but this broken pussy
all the scars I carried round with me
but hid, so they wouldn’t see

Slut
Bitch
Whore
Tease

Don’t call him a rapist if you never said no
Don’t stay in my bed if you’re not gonna put on a show
Don’t kiss me if you’re not gonna go all the way
Don’t be such a flirt if you’re not gonna play

Oh, my backwards liberation
as I find stillness for my healing
as I find a man to hold me
without expecting anything

I am unlearning & relearning the ways
of how to be empowered
without crumbling under the weight
of the lustful male gaze

I am trying to call myself beautiful
I am trying to call myself strong
I am trying to say I am whole again

regardless of my wounds
regardless of my bleeding
regardless of all my needing

after they took so much away.

Devon Webb (she/her) is a writer & editor based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her award-winning work has been published extensively worldwide & revolves around themes of femininity, vulnerability, anti-capitalism & neurodivergence. She is a staff writer for Erato Magazine & Pulp Lit Mag, an editor for Prismatica Press, & a founding member of The Circus (@circuslit), a collective prioritising radical inclusivity within the indie lit scene. She can be found on social media at @devonwebbnz.