Sex with a Brain Injury

I know why my friends think the sex should be the same. It’s because I look the same.

Illustration by Kyle Griggs

The best way to picture it is this: that’s my wife on our bed, and that’s a tree stump on top of her. The funny thing is she is really into the tree stump, even though the stump can’t do too much, maybe crush her with its weight.

I am trying to figure out how to move. I am above my wife, and I am stuck. I don’t know how to get myself out of this position, which looks similar to a dog when it’s raising its leg to take a piss. The problem is my brain has stopped telling me what to do. My wife touches my arm, What do you need?

The only times I’ve ever moved through holy water are on the page, on the dance floor, on the ice, and when I’m with my wife.

I used to be good at sex. This is a secret I’ve held close, but I’ll tell you now because it’s been taken from me. That’s how I caught my wife — sex and poetry, and the promise of more sex through poetry. It started in seventh grade when Sean Callahan kissed me atop the doghouse, my knees straddling his concave shoulders, and he asked, Where did you learn that, do you watch dad movies? I understood then that I had a hidden intelligence, and it had to do with attunement. From then on, I decided I was only going to share it with people I liked.