Shakthi Shrima

Yelp Page for My Cunt

When a business is Yelp Verified, it means that our team of moderators has checked that business’s trade license and confirmed that it was in good standing as of the date we checked it. Users can click or tap through to see details about the trade license and issuing authority.” 1
(Yelp Support Center, “What is the Yelp Verified Badge?”)

To verify that you are the owner of your business, Yelp may call the number listed on your business page and prompt you to enter a verification code 2. Please ensure you are at your place of business to answer this phone call.”
(Yelp For Business Owners, “Claiming your Business”)

Recommended Reviews

TIGHT

oh my god you’re tight 3

The tightest I’ve ever (… more)

so fucking tight 4 holy s(… more)

can’t last too long here

You wouldn’t believe how ti(… more)

[View more reviews]


1 Authority? What authority? If I say I have a trade license
then I have a fucking trade license. At least
I let you in. You know what’s really crazy
is my phone won’t let me read more
than half a sentence of any of these reviews
if I don’t download the app. Bullshit. My
phone doesn’t have room for your goddamn app.
What kind of a name is ‘Yelp,’ anyway?
‘Yelp’ is the sound a small animal makes
when it’s scared. You know, if I clicked
more, I bet I’d learn nothing new.

2 Honestly, the business phone always goes to voicemail
because it’s a burner phone so shitty that it shuts down
every fucking time it’s called. Don’t act surprised.
Everyone knows burner phones are cheap. Thank god
for voicemail. The voice you hear isn’t mine but I sure know
how to make it. It’s a voice like a spoon and you’re hungry.
Of course you’ll come. You don’t need me to enter
a verification code. Joke’s on you—I’m not really the owner
of this business. I’m never here. I don’t even know
where I left that dumb phone. When I said cheap
I meant cheap—for all I know the keypad doesn’t even work.

3 A girl said this. I remember.
What’s the difference between a girl and an echo?

4 I remember this guy too, his eager fingers splaying
past my parted mouth in the moment before their thrust

into my cunt. On instinct I sucked them
clean of nothing. After all, any mouth I have gets extra stars

when someone finds a way to shut it. So tight, he said
and I gasped at the thrill of having a body that could be desired

while touched. Shouldn’t a business want nothing more
than to be wanted? I’m lying. I’m a terrible liar. I gasped

because it hurt. I gasped because I’ve always gasped. More,
I told him, as though my cunt would become a realer cunt

in pain. My throat grew tight, and my chest.
My chest was tight because it wanted my heart

to get out. It’s so sexy, isn’t it, when my body tries to say
what I won’t. Why am I telling you any of this

when there’s a sex joke waiting to be made? You know,
the one about eating out. Or the one where

there’s no food. It isn’t polite to serve food you wouldn’t
eat. It isn’t polite to make sex jokes. I’ve got to stay in good

standing. I told you, I don’t even own this place. My cunt
is tightest against my limp hand. Most days, I need my clothes on

and a machine whirring at the seam of my sweats under the loose
sheets, a bed that can fit my body three times over. I need to imagine

pretty strangers slick and undone, begging themselves open
without me. My cunt gasps with the relief

of holding nothing at all. I am a small
animal, alone, making no sound.

Shakthi Shrima's work appears or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2018, The Collagist, Copper Nickel, VINYL, Muzzle Magazine, DIALOGIST, and BOAAT, amongst others. Shakthi Shrima appears or is forthcoming in her unmade bed.