Surrogate

I knew what he wanted:
he wanted me.

No; that's too crude.
He wanted a part of me.

Still less: just to use.
No; that's still vulgar.

He wanted to be held
and yet I denied him.

And he could not take it
even though he tried.

So why am I not flattered
that he chose me?


11 November 1986
  
 

I don’t have a type. Some men do. Or if I do have a type it’s ‘female’. I like women of all sorts and when I line up all the women I’ve ever had any kind of relationship with or attraction to about the only thing they have in common is that they’re women. Or girls. At the start they were just girls but that was okay because I was just a boy. Even then I was a loyal sort. Between the ages of eleven and fifteen I “fell in love”—let us not debate the expression (I was sincere at the time)—with only two girls and, to be honest, I never really got over either of them. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever got over any of the women in my life. I’ve moved on or they’ve moved on or life made things impossible. Life does that.

What is a surrogate? Nowadays we tend to associate the word with a woman who hires out her womb so another couple can have a child. That’s not what I’m on about here. Because of circumstances F. and I were not able to be together as much as we wanted. She had kids who kept her occupied and being busy is a decent enough distraction, a kind of company, but I was often alone and lonely and so I found myself looking to others to fill the gap where F. should’ve been. Stand-ins. Proxies. Stopgaps. Surrogates. Most never realised and that was just as well—no one likes to be second choice—but M. did. The poem’s not dedicated to her but it should’ve been; ‘Scars’ (#613) is.