HANNAH METTNER

OMG, am I a hedonist?

 

Drinking from an art deco crystal champagne
coupe with a hollow stem is a commitment
to understanding a different kind of lived

experience to my own. In some ways I feel
oh, even more contemporary when I do this —
with my nail-polish that can detect a spiked drink.

I could so easily have been born in the wrong
time. God, it is hell to even think of it. If I
went back to then, my eyeshadow alone

would give me away. But I am planted in my own
time like a tree with many leaves and no
fruits. No fruits yet, but damn I can feel them

coming. I’m not a sensual person, I wouldn’t
have said, but I do like to be touched …
yes, like that. I am absolutely here for this —

the way you oh-so-lightly tap me on the ass
like you’re still not sure if this is something
people do. Propping myself up on one elbow

in your bed, each kiss is a white lie, but there
is nothing so sexy as reassurance and a silk
pillowcase. Do you, too, remember with

fondness the craze for body chocolate
in the early 2000s? God, the absolute
charmlessness of that time, when all I had

going for me was my youth and horniness.
Each day is like a canyon of light that I must
press myself into or be forgotten forever.

Do you feel this way too? OK, I admit
when we watch the eclipse of the blood moon
your arms around me feel like the origin

of the universe. Stars crackling their primal static.
Your breath in my hair the first time anyone
has done this. You are wearing a perfume

that is supposed to smell like lightning
in the aurora borealis and am so grateful to you
for not choosing something basic on the nose.

All I want is another pair of earrings and
a deep emotional connection with someone
I enjoy fucking, is that too much to ask?

I want only treasure, I don’t want all the other
junk. OMG, am I a hedonist, I wonder, and
is there an elegant way to eat slivers of raw fish?

I always feel so wrong in my body, especially
if someone is looking at me. And this is why,
you know, I wear the most ridiculous dresses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hannah Mettner is a Wellington-based poet from Tūranganui-a-Kiwa. Her first collection, Fully Clothed and so Forgetful (VUP 2017), was longlisted for the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and won the Jessie Mackay Award for best first book of poetry. With Sugar Magnolia Wilson and Morgan Bach, she is one of the founding editors of Sweet Mammalian. A new collection is forthcoming from THWUP in 2023.