Donna Vorreyer

What a Girl Wants

The vocal acrobatics of Christina Aguilera insist
that what a girl wants is someone who won’t demand
commitment, who will give her space. But there are
more things to desire than relationships, and what I want
is often not that sweet. I want to get rid of the neighbor’s
chickens who shit all over my lawn. I want the car
who cuts me off on the road to get pulled over up ahead
so I can drive by and laugh. I feel guilty since I was taught
to appreciate what I have, the difference between want
and need. Still I want so many things. To wake in the morning
to 20/20 vision, thirty pounds lighter and living in a world
that is no longer on fire. Andy Warhol once said that as soon as
you stop wanting something, you get it. I want my parents
to not be dead. I can’t stop wanting this. I will never stop.

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Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Her poetry, fiction and essay work have appeared in Ploughshares, Cherry Tree, Poet Lore, Salamander, Harpur Palate, Booth and many others. She lives and creates in the Chicago area and hosts the monthly online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.