Nothing Is Okay

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