by Rachel Wiley
You aren’t going anywhere.
We aren’t going anywhere.
We fight too hard to exist.
Go ahead and show them the ways you collide
like you were born from it.
PROMISSORY
For Dez
We are far and away from the days we were homecoming queens of
the convenience store parking lot, fuel pump island girls who smelled
of candy and gasoline, we welcomed in the cars whose bass shook the
ground like furious dancing gods
and offered ourselves up to them
when we knew what our youth and cleavage and the
well-timed lick of a blow pop could get us,
but not yet what they would cost us.
We never bothered to read the promissory notes
we signed
to be young
and girls
and without curfew.
We assumed the terms to be ours.
We could not know what we would leave behind
in wandering naive from our hilltop
that we would come to know what it means
to be debt-full and woman
and still with no one calling us home.
What tribeless girls we were
when we stumbled upon one another
and got our heartstrings tangled
what a fortune of unbalance that pushed us together
that kept us tethered.
I thank the rumble gods for you
for your steadying arms in the darkness.
One of these days we’ll scrape enough gas money
from the floor mats to run away
someplace where we don’t have to wear this skin like bark.
Someplace where we will not spend
any more years piling on scabs
until we are crab-shelled laughter ghosts.
We will be unsalted hot pearls.
We will stand on a beach tasting a salt spray not made of tears and
Midwest wind after everyone else has gone to sleep.
We will peel down to the soft fruit
and for once it won’t hurt
and for once it will be on our terms.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
(a found poem made up of the opening messages from my OKcupid inbox)
Hi
Hi
Heyy
Hey
Hey
Hello there.
Whats up?
Hey gorgeous
Good morning sexy
Hello, you areverypretty
Care to chat gorgeous?
Your gorgeous
Hey gorgeous. You’re really sexy.
Hey, think your pretty, chat sometime?
Hello Cutie … How are you doing?
Look at u such a sexy woman!
Nice and busty :-)
Yummy
U so sexy
Your eyes are seducing me
I love your curves, you’re a real hottie
You got any other piercings;-P
You are very pulchritudinous
would love to show you what I got
Could i possibly get you to be bad with me?
you should text me dirty things
I think I would like to strip down and cuddle up with you
what do you think of oral sex, or do you prefer to use ur hands?
Are you into pegging?
Do as daddy says
do you like married men
Fuck, I want it
want to have sex with you
I would love to eat that ass and pussy
Mmm. I want that thick pussy in my face.
What are you doing? you should be in bed by now … with me;-)
You’re pretty and OMG your figure is absolutely breathtaking!
You are unbelievably gorgeous. I am rendered speechless
HOW TO EAT YOUR FEELINGS: SELF DOUBT
You will need:
-1 box of ice cream bars
(I prefer dove bars but any ice cream bar on a stick will do)
-1 vibrator
-Extra batteries (just in case)
-1 Prince album
Operate the vibrator with one hand.
Eat an ice cream bar with the other
while listening to the Prince Album.
Prince doesn’t allow for doubt.
Orgasm.
Repeat as needed.
Feeds:
All of Your Haters
SOMETHING AFTER BORROWED
The first time you left for all of my wanting too much
I waited
as long as I could
before I filled the shoebox with
our wedding,
our home in Indiana,
and our
daughter with
mismatched eyes.
I buried
it
all
in the empty
field
that would soon become a large and busy gas station
across the street from the restaurant
where we’d had our first awkward date that
ended with us stumble-kissed and full of sunrises.
Our girl is 5 years old
when you come back and ask
for her.
I can no more resurrect
the mother hunger in me
than I can reach thru the concrete
and pull
her
out for you now.
PEACE OFFERINGS FOR THE GIRL WITH HER BACK PRESSED AGAINST THE DOOR
A vase of seed-headed dandelions for the first time you tried to fly off the front porch but managed only a goose egg on your forehead
A heart-shaped box of assorted deadbolts for the night you were left home alone and the man from 3 doors down tried to get in and you blew out your vocal cords screaming until he went away
One hundred long-stemmed summers for the night Grandma tried to scrub the extra melanin from your skin in the bathtub
A piggy bank full of safe passages home for that time the man stopped and jerked off in front of you and Cassandra on your way home from school
A crown of golden fall leaves plucked from mid-air for the second time you tried to fly, launching from the top bar of the swing set and managed only a set of bruised knees and gravel set like precious stones into your palms
A bracelet of diamond-cut baby teeth for the night the neighbor boy raped you and your mother found him on top of you but still sent you to his house to be looked after while she was at work
A bouquet of wild gods for the one you stopped believing in after losing the only other girl in the 5th grade who spoke dewey decimal when her house caught fire and she went up like a rare first edition
A pair of lover’s deft hands to remove the hurt like surfacing splinters that still haunt your skin from the years of torment by an older brother who was scared of the sight of blood unless it was yours
For the third time you tried to fly, this time piloting a pill bottle rocket ship but instead managed to remain an earthling, there is no appeasement but rather a parade for the sweet gravity that held you here to this planet like an imperfect mother to her chest.
BIG WOMEN
It always begins with the kind of stare I can feel,
as though the sun itself is trying to render my body to flame
then the attempt to catch my elusive eye
followed by the questions of my availability
I radiate disinterest so hard I pulsate
and still inevitably the lean in and the whisper comes
but I like big women
As though the password to a speakeasy and I should open up and
serve him all my unlicensed intoxicating wares
As though my no was not due to indifference
but the certainty that this prince of public transit could not possibly be
interested in me
Massive me
He likes big wom
en?
And yet he’s not been thrown a parade?!
Attention Passengers of the #2 East Bound Main Street Bus:
He likes big women!
He likes big women so I should take off my giant panties
fall to my fat knees on this very bus and service him
He likes big women and that is more important that my comfort
Tell me, what are the odds that I, a big woman,
get on a city bus with this man
who happens to like big women?!
The stars are at last aligning in my favor!!
Three cheers for the knight who wants the castle
despite her princess
Let us take this bus to the end of the line and start a new life
where I will birth his children
and when they ask wide-eyed
mommy how did you know daddy was the one?
I can say,
Well, he boldly fought thru my personal boundaries while I was just
trying to get home from work and told me
that he liked big women
as though this isn’t the subtlest way to say—
take who will have you
because who else will possibly want you like that?
THE OPPOSITE OF UP
Hey Baby, did it hurt
when you fell from my expectations?
Aye Boo, you MUST be a library book
because I kept you longer than I should have
and now it’s costing me.
Hey Sugar, you know what this broom is for?
Cleaning up the pieces of my life after you left and took the dog.
Do you have a band-aid?
Cause I scraped my knee falling for your bullshit.
Hey Sweetheart, are your legs tired?
Cause you’ve been running from commitment your whole life.
I bet I could guess your sign …
It’s Dead End, isn’t it?
Could someone call the fire department?
Cause you are a dumpster fire.
Baby, if you were a sandwich at McDonald’s
you would be the McSpineless.
Hey Darlin’, if I could rearrange the alphabet I would
put F and U together.
Baby, you must be a magician
because abraca-FUCKYOU.
Was your daddy a sewer worker?
Cause you are full of shit.
Hey Sugar, where ya goin’?
I hate to see you leave but I love watching you walk into traffic.
HOROSCOPE FOR THE PREMATURE SCORPIO: JULY 2014
That Sad-Eyed Boy you share this sign with
is a Midwest Speed Trap.
Apparently he does not know what he wants but it isn’t you.
Apparently, you’re amazing and all but it isn’t you.
Today, you find your bursting heart again
in the house of too much.
Today it is okay to be angry and to want
these last three months back
to want a return on all that hope you spent so easily on this
too easily on this
Today, your teeth are full of jade and questions
with no point in asking.
Today, you hate him for what you were willing
to give up/trade/compromise
and for what he will not. It is okay to call out this cowardice.
In fact, go ahead and say things you cannot take back.
Fuck the consequences.
This was a mistake. You should not have come here.
This is a mistake. You should go away now.
Lucky Numbers: the miles between you, the 5 years between
breakups, and that one awkward time he thought you said
I Love You.
HAVISHAM
(inspired by Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations)
I cannot consider it tomorrow until I have slept. I was to be a married woman by this time tomorrow and as I have no husband now it cannot
be tomorrow. I will not sleep.
Midnight’s arm is not strong enough to lift and turn the calendar day, not with my sodden & angry heart resting atop it … I live this endless and awful day, a punishment for believing I could be something other
than an empty house …
I’ve got an altar for a good promise … a set of gold-plated
picture frames for good pictures,
a string of moon-headed lanterns for a good party.
I’ve got this cake … this cake turned corpse flower, the flies devoured the blooms and left the stench. I’ve got this vanishing groom for my fool’s heart. I’ve got this un-listening God for a wailing prayer. I’ve got this echo feeding me back my own begging … I got this dress, o’ this dress … wouldn’t be right to take it off now. A bride undoing her own corset?! I am unconsummated. I was a beautiful bride. I would
have been a good wife, a happy home.
I towed myself across the threshold. I am the town’s whisper fool, jilted bride, foreclosed wife, forsaken home, tantrum at God’s own feet. It seems he will not make me an upright bride in this dress so I
should marry the dirt. Lord, send me a man
to wring my neck or take my hand
truly, send me a man who is not as silent as God is to me now and I
will worship him.
I SPENT YEARS NOT WEARING RED BECAUSE BOLD COLORS ON BIG GIRLS DRAW ATTENTION AND GOOD GIRLS DO NOT WANT ATTENTION BUT ANYWAY I AM FAT AND THEREFORE INCAPABLE OF GOODNESS
So the dress will be red
like the first time you bleed thru the back of your skirt, red fabric,
spun from the cling of an unashamed lover on a crowded street and
just as soft as their lips there are pockets made of the attic crawl
spaces of old homes for your brass knuckles and your lipstick and
photos of your grandmother feeling bold in her bikini in 1964
and it is strapless
and it can be strapless because the bust line is made from the branches
of pomegranate trees and the backbone of Atlas but with an underwire
made of the weightlessness felt in water the dress flares at the bottom
like a mermaid tail
made of fireworks
and wish-headed dandelions. The whole thing stitched with string
lights pulled straight from a Christmas tree holding
everything you ever coveted
but were denied for not being deemed worthy piled underneath
because we are worthy of wanting this dress doesn’t ask for
attention
it takes
it.
LETTER TO MY CAT, EXPLORING MY IMPENDING SPINSTERHOOD
(After Andrea Gibson)
Dear Clementine
Aka Clemmy
Aka Russian Ballet Legend Clemerushka
Aka Oh My Darlin’ Oh My Darlin’ Oh My Darlin’ Clementine
Aka My Fat Bottomed Girl
Aka My Side Eye With Fur and Four Legs
I read somewhere that cats nuzzle their faces against things
to claim them as their own.
Everything in our apartment belongs to you,
including me.
I know you think it’s dumb that I only sleep 6-8 hours
one time per day,
that there is anything that requires me to be anywhere other than
where you can heavily drape yourself across my hip
like a lover’s arm
or curl into the big spoon of my body
like a dollop of marmalade.
For the record I think it’s dumb too
but someone’s gotta pay the rent and you won’t
even put a resume together.
At the job I leave you to go to each day there is a terrible man
who says that he hates cats because
your affection has to be earned.
He says this like it is a bad and impossib
le thing.
He also thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to whistle in the office
so it’s not like he has any real credibility anyway
but his seems to be a popular opinion.
I know it must seem strange that I would ever come running
the first or fifth or twelfth time someone calls my name
but some nights I wake up from a dead sleep feeling so alone
and I just need to know you’re still around
and even when you are busy with the important duty
of stalking a moth on the living room wall
I appreciate that you do eventually come.
I really like the way you hate basically everyone except me
especially on the days I am convinced
everyone else actually does hate me.
There are days I hate everyone except you.
There are never days that I hate you though
not even when you claw the furniture
not even when you wake me up on Saturday mornings to
alert me that your food bowl isn’t all the way full, but
only part of the way full and that this is unacceptable.
I like the way you don’t settle for less.
My mom says it is a sign that you are comfortable and happy when
you lay on your back and show me your tummy.
This is a love language I understand.
The last person I got comfortable enough to lay on my back
and show my tummy to was a man I loved so much that I
want to vomit in his absence the same way you vomit when
you think I have been gone for an unreasonable amount of
time. This man has been gone an unreasonable amount of time
and if he is gone for good this relationship will have ended
no differently than any other failed relationship
you’ve witnessed over these last 11 years
and this makes me think about how long it took you
to stop smooshing stink bugs.
I think love might be my stink bugs
Clem,
I’ve got no more prowl left in me to bring anyone
home who doesn’t
see the worth in earning my affection.
Or who doesn’t occasionally wake up just to make
sure that I am still here.
The spinster trope goes that we should grow reclusive
and brittle together,
until one morning you’ll come to alert me
of your not entirely full bowl