Dating in My Mid-Forties | Sabrina Santa Clara

After two years of dating,
I am weary of half-ways and fizzles
and men who have had the primal trained right out of them,
taught to be far too polite,
stuck in the should I? shouldn’t I? of behavior
that gets around instinct and connection.

I am exhausted by the step-in step-out,
the get close pull away,
the chicken-shit unwillingness to take a real risk.

I am tired of having to be the man.
Of initiating, taking the chance, risking the rejection.
Something has gone wrong on this side of feminism.

I want to scream that I DO NOT WANT POLITE SEX.
I do not want to be so thoroughly respected
that I will never be pushed up against the wall,
willingly fucked and ravaged and thoroughly manhandled.

I am looking for a man who is more of a man than I am.
I am looking to be relieved of the post.

After two years of dating in my mid-forties
I am just about ready to give up,
like half my friends in their mid-fifties.
Or mid-thirties, for that matter.
And something in me rails against that collapse,
against a life with the heat gone out of it.

But how many times do I get to do this
before the doing is the problem?