Hot Freaks

Bob, the way you talk about sex is gross.
Sex is gross. But the way you talk about it--
it's like you enjoy it or something. I don't
get that. This will be tentative:

When I was a kid, like six or so,
I had this thing with skunks. No idea how
it started, but things grow and grow,
and on this one afternoon,
second grade, burned into memory:

an article in Ranger Rick Magazine,
detailing the mindset of the skunk and the deployment
of its peculiar apparata as it sprays. I read
about a third of it and began to feel off, and so:

I took it to the bathroom and locked the door.
I put it on the shelf at the end of the bathtub
and knelt there and--

Now, let me say that this is not how I
usually read. I didn't know how to account
for what this article was doing to me. I had
to put it outside of regular experience. So I
created this new relationship to the space
of my world and home through which--

--and read the rest. My blood was
moving around. My blood was moving around. It
wasn't normal. I locked the door because
I didn't want my family to know that I felt these things.
Mr. Pollard,

What was it again you thought you knew
about freaks? And then this thing started
where, whenever I stood facing away from
my second grade teacher, I became

a skunk with my tail raised and I was terrified that
she would see--the terrible peril she was in! Mr.
Pollard. Seriously. What the fuck is that!

My mother always told me, "Get your hand
out of your pants. Boys only hold their
penises when they need to pee." I still don't
know how to process this.