Track List for a Mix Tape I Will Never Give My Crush

by Jessie Lynn McMains

side a

#1:
        A song about how I woke up at four a.m. from a sex dream about you.
        The dream was so vivid I felt your particular weight against me, your breath hot
        on my neck, your sweat slicking me into a slip’n’slide, and when I woke in the dark
        of my bedroom I was shocked that you weren’t there. I shoved my hand between
        my legs, and when I came I bit down on my lower lip to keep from crying out, bit
        down so hard it bled. I fell back asleep feeling empty and sad, with the rusty tang
        of blood lingering in my mouth.

#2:
        A song that lets you know this isn’t just lust.
        As often as I imagine making out with you, I also imagine me and you - I do - making
        art together, drinking coffee in a tiny twilit cafe, talking for hours about everything
        that crosses our minds. As I go about my days, I picture you going about yours; picture
        you in your kitchen drinking coffee, sketching on scraps of paper, thinking of me.

#3:
        A song in which everything is a metaphor for my heart.
        My heart is like a cellar door, rusted shut, waiting for you to oil its hinges and kick
        it wide open. My heart is like Frankenstein’s monster - ripped apart so many times
        then rebuilt with pieces of my spleen, my left toe, a rotting eyeball robbed from
        a grave; if only your electric lips touched mine I could shout It’s alive! My heart is
        like a neon sign flashing something enticing, like EAT or Live! Nude! Girls! My heart
        is like a dumpster fire that burns only for you.

#4:
        A song about how my dumpster fire of a heart is in cahoots with my cunt.
        My heart thump-thumps and I feel the pulse in my cunt and it gets so wet and hot
        I swear to god I can see the steam rising off it. I can’t stop fantasizing about fucking.
        You. I imagine you bending me over a chair and smacking my ass with an open palm over
        and over until I feel the heat of the welts rising on my skin, before you grab a fistful
        of my hair and yank my head back while you fuck me hard. Yes, yes, I want you to fuck
        me so hard it’s almost too hard, and I want it because I’m a dirty girl who likes it rough.
        I want it because my desires are immoral and dirty and I need you to punish me for
        my sins. I want it because if you were tender, I might be tricked into thinking this could
        lead to something more than jerk-off fodder for my dirty mind.

#5:
        A song about how I don’t know how to act around you.
        Sometimes I see the curve of your lower lip and the way your eyes crinkle up at the
        edges when you grin and my thoughts turn to the types of deeds sung about in the
        dirtiest Prince songs. I’m afraid I might pounce on you like a woman turned wildcat. I’m
        afraid you can smell my desire rising off me like steam. So I tease and joke and pretend
        I’m not thinking of what it would be like if I was your girlfriend. Other times you say
        sweet things that make me like you more and that makes me angry. I’m not in control
        of my pussy or the flashing feelings of my neon heart and I hate myself for it, and that
        makes me want to punish you. I want to punch you in your sweet, dirty mouth.

side b

#1:
        A song about how it’s not a big deal. Really, I’ll get over it.
        You’re just the newest name on a long list of hopeless crushes. I’ll write a few purple
        poems, make mixes that I’ll never give you, touch myself and cry over you - for a few
        weeks, maybe a month or two, before some shiny new crush catches my eye. Faster than
        you can say “I think she likes me,” I’ll have moved on to some girl in a motorcycle jacket,
        some boy in a flowered dress. Even if we hooked up, it wouldn’t last long. Baby, you have
        never seen anyone get bored and restless as fast as I do once my desires are met. And
        you’d just wind up as the newest member of the “I Nailed Jessie” club - a club with a very
        large membership. You’d be nothing but a scratching post for my wildcat-clawed lust.

#2:
        A song about how I ache for you.
        If we never touch, if you never fuck me, I think I might die. I’m pretty sure this song is by
        Liz Phair, because every time you pass me by, I heave a sigh of pain.

#3:
        A song about how I’m losing my mind.
        After I last saw you, I stopped by the supermarket. I wandered the brightly-lit aisles
        in a daze. I had saucy thoughts while looking at jars of pasta sauce, and in the produce
        section I got creepy with the cucumbers and the melons, was a little overzealous in my
        search for something ripe and firm. I had a half-smile on my face and I almost hit four
        people with my cart, and everyone probably thought I was stoned. I was, but not on drugs;
        I was high on lust and confusion. And in my car, on the way home, a song came on the
        radio - a song you’d mentioned that day. I laughed, and then I cried, because I want you
        and I’m not supposed to. Want you. I laugh-cried until I got hiccups and what the fuck
        is wrong with me?

#4:
        A song about how I want you and I’m not supposed to, and my desires are dirty and
        dangerous, but maybe I don’t care anymore. Maybe I wanna do what feels good, do what’s
        bad. So let’s do it with cliches and power chords. Let’s flirt with danger and hitch a ride
        with trouble. Let the small-minded and jealous gossip, throw nasty rumors and reputations
        our way. No matter what they say, I can assure you I’ve heard worse. Yes, it’s scandalous,
        but darling we’re artists and every artist needs a good scandal from time to time.

#5:
        A maudlin song, a tears-in-my-beer song about how I don’t even know if you like me.
        That way. I picture you sitting at your kitchen table. A shaft of sunlight comes
        through the curtains, plays against the curves of your lips and gives a shine to your dark
        hair. You are drinking coffee, thinking of me. In another version of that same scene,
        you are not thinking of me. In that version, you never think of me. And here’s the thing -
        I don’t know which song is sadder. I don’t know which version makes my Frankenstein’s
        monster of a heart hurt more: the one where we want, but can’t have, each other; or the one
        where you have never once woken in the dark of your bedroom, wishing my body were
        pressed against yours.