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Get dressed up like it’s prom night and your whole young glamourous life
NOTHING IS OKAY
NOTHING IS OKAY
by Rachel Wiley
“I fall in love with myself, and I want someone to share it with me. And I want someone to share me, with me.”
—EARTHA KITT
© 2017 by Rachel Wiley
Published by Button Poetry / Exploding Pinecone Press
Minneapolis, MN 55403 | http://www.buttonpoetry.com
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover Design: Amy Law
ISBN 978-1-943735-30-3
Ebook ISBN 978-1-943735-38-9
TABLE OF CONTENTS
But They Say I Will Not Make It
Rejection #1
Mixed Girl
My Whiteness Hits on Me in a Bar
The Art of Riding a Tandem Bike Alone
In the Event the Wind Is Knocked Out of You
Cooking With Tears
Femme Visibility
Notes on Depression
A Plague of Doubts
How to Eat Your Feelings: Anger
Glory in Two Parts
Halloween Shopping With My Niece
Grief
An Incomplete Pinterest Board of Uses for the Abundance of Condoms That Expired After He Left
Horoscope for the Premature Scorpio: March 2013
Incantation for Autonomy
Fat Joke
Potential Slogans for OkCupid
Rejection #2
Joy Buzzer
Prime Cuts
My Sugar, My Sweet
A Green Book for My Niece
Promissory
First Impressions
How to Eat Your Feelings: Self Doubt
Something After Borrowed
Peace Offerings for the Girl with Her Back Pressed Against the Door
Big Women
The Opposite of Up
Horoscope for the Premature Scorpio: July 2014
Havisham
I Spent Years Not Wearing Red …
Letter to My Cat Exploring My Impending Spinsterhood
What Is Left
A Litany on Breathing
For My Grandpa on His 76th Birthday
The Body Song
No One’s
When We Were Kings, One Day
How to Eat Your Feelings: Loneliness
Form Letter to My Exes …
Expect-Cum Patronus
Dry Cake Wishes and Tap Water Dreams
Rejection #3
Joyce Carol Vincent: Illusionist
Sleeping Giants
Spoilage
How to Eat Your Feelings: Anxiety
Solidarity With Miss Colombia 2015
Settle
They Bolt the Headboards to the Walls These Days
A Response to the Men of OkCupid Adamant About Showing Me Their Cocks
Paradise
Ode to All the Mothers I Borrowed
Waiting for the End of the World
For Fat Girls Who Considered Starvation When Bulimia Wasn’t Enough
The Leaving
How My Feminism Learned to Talk
Belly Kisses
Burying My Husband
BUT THEY SAY I WILL NOT MAKE IT
When you are fat (and I am fat) the streets are full of
soothsayers
telling you how you will die.
They all seem so anxious for my heart
like it’s an unattended package at the airport
so I move thru the world listening
for my heart like it must be a clock
swallowed by a crocodile.
No,
a canary that goes silent much too late.
No,
they are certain it is going to attack, my heart,
like a hungry bear on a camp ground
ripping a zipper down my chest, cracking
my sternum like a cheap tent pole.
I am not at all sorry for my size
so I must be a barge which would make my heart a fish
washed onto the deck
GaspingFloppingSlamming scales off its body
like an angry beauty queen ripping sequins from a dress
that didn’t sparkle enough to win
but then that would make my heart a beauty queen
that can’t walk in heels …
No,
wait.
My heart is an hourglass filled with gunpowder
and at any given moment some wild spark
is gonna blow me sky high
so, I don’t know, maybe this is why I love the way I do
with teeth and swallow and song and snarl
and water and sparkle and consequence
maybe this is why I show up to your front door
out of breath and full of dazzle
like this is the last ballyhoo
and nothing at all can wait till the morning.
Forgive me, they keep telling me that my heart is not my heart.
They keep telling me that I am dying.
This may be our last chance.
REJECTION #1
Dear MrTongueRing69,
Thank you for your submission, however we were unable to read it as our office is not currently equipped with a way-back machine to travel to an era when your screen name was clever and probably somewhat alluring. I can only assume it read something like “A/S/L?” before launching into the screech-and-click dial-up-modem siren song of your people.
Nonetheless, it is probably still safe to wish you well in finding a home for your cock.
Kindest Regards,
Nothing is Ok, Cupid Quarterly
MIXED GIRL
After Angel Nafis and Terrance Hayes
Mixed Girl, White Mother
Mixed Girl, Black Father
Yes, really
Mixed Girl, White Mother’s Hair
Black Father’s Lips
patient while you pick and choose
what’s exotic enough
sighs thru tired jokes about how she only gets half of
Martin Luther King Day off work
White Mother’s Guilt
Black Father’s Survival
Survivor’s Guilt
Passing
wonders if it’s called passing because something dies inside each time
carries her blackness like Peter Pan’s shadow shot down and
stitched desperately back to her heels
Mixed Girl also Fat
Yes, Fat
Fat, Mixed Girl reconciled the word Fat
passes slowly, a heavy drop of water
passes race but not weight limits
sighs thru tired jokes about black men loving fat white women
living punchline
Fat, Mixed Girl also Queer
Yes, Really
Queer, Fat, Mixed Girl’s pronouns are
She/Her/Your Majesty
femme
triple threat invisible
double agents as Straight Shameful White Lady
sighs thru tired jokes about greed
as sexual orientation
admits to having mostly had relationships
with cis-men
no less attracted to women tho
no less attracted to non-binary beauty tho
probably thinks you’re cute
probably wants to make out with you
Yes, you
Queer, Fat, Mixed Girl is a Feminist
No shit.
Yes, Feminist
Feminist, Queer, Fat, Mixed Girl is full body intersection
passing whiteness, passing straightness,
passing weakness
makes her a conceal carry revolt
has one common enemy
aims to gut the white supremacist patriarchy
rouge her cheeks with his blood
Feminist
Queer
Fat
Mixed
Girl
knows he will
never
ever
see her
coming
MY WHITENESS HITS ON ME IN A BAR
You’re welcome.
You hear me?
I said you’re welcome
like your mother’s
stolen sapphires
when you could’ve had your father’s mud puddles.
You’re welcome.
They make you look so innocent
so trusting.
Don’t forget I got you that troubleless hair too
The same hair that got you a good job
or at least didn’t keep you from one.
You really should be more grateful.
Your skin is default nude
default skin tone.
No one assumes you are uneducated.
I do that.
For you.
For Us.
All of us.
This ruling race of us.
Which is better than them.
Which deserves more than them.
Is it so hard to show a little gratitude?
It’s a compliment.
The way the cops won’t doubt you/press your face into the dirt.
The way bullets won’t hunt your light skin/your pink cheeks.
The way I built this place a bomb shelter for you.
Stop fighting for some part of you no one can see/wants to see.
Stop fighting for people that don’t look like you.
You got real lucky, girl.
Don’t you feel lucky?
Don’t you love the way I’ve made all of this easy for you?
You should show me how much you love it.
Show me with those colored-girl lips you ended up with.
Kneel for me like you’re scrubbing a floor—I know
you know how.
That’s in your blood.
I haven’t forgotten that you pass.
Maybe you forgot that I am the one who crowned you
queen of the paper bag prom
but that can be our little secret.
All you have to do is relax
and let it happen.
THE ART OF RIDING A TANDEM BIKE ALONE
In the Museum of Broken Relationships
there is a living diorama
a real and breathing spinster in bloom
coated in cat hair and cynicism.
Watch, as she cooks dinner for one and eats it over the sink.
Be amazed, as she ages alone save of course the cat
(who is just as cantankerous as she).
Behold, how she drinks bourbon straight from the bottle
because it offers her a mouth to kiss.
Witness, how she weeps until she dissolves
and then wakes up to rebuild herself
one salt grain at a time the next morning.
Observe, the cavernous sigh as she realizes it will all have to be done
again
and again
and again …
See the actual butterflies from her very stomach
which once danced with possibility
pinned by their wings.
Feast your eyes, on this true human rest stop.
A motel that dreamed once of becoming a home
silly temporary thing with soap-sliver hands
and a body/a bed that held lovers as though
they might actually stay.
IN THE EVENT THE WIND IS KNOCKED OUT OF YOU
Remember that this chest grasp
this violent sigh
this exodus is temporary
nothing more than a spasm
though the force that knocked
it from you, the weight that
dipped you to the dirt,
the vortex kiss that put
you on your back
may leave some welt
or knot or void,
the air will return.
Trust the bone nest cradling
your pink precious lungs
to mother the breath
back home to you
and also, to expand wide enough
to sob or to sing
or to just resume.
COOKING WITH TEARS
Because nothing brings a meal together quite like the right seasoning, what better seasoning than TEARS?
Our very own tear ducts are the salt shakers of the face, so go ahead, tap into that sadness and cry over your meals for a truly nostalgic flavor sensation.
Who among us doesn’t have fond childhood memories of Mom weeping over a hot stove top occasionally muttering about lost dreams before telling us everything is just fine before sending us outside to play until dinner? You can keep the tradition alive, even if just for yourself since you have failed in your womanly obligation to reproduce and your grandmother keeps hinting that it really would be fine if you are a lesbian.
These days, synthetic tears are available for people who might be worried about their sadness intake but still crave the robust flavor of tears just like Mother used to make. As with most healthy substitutes, you will be sacrificing some flavor, but you can’t have it both ways.
When throwing dinner parties, it may be important to remember that some of your guests may have removed tears from their diets due to the effect on the planet or some such nonsense (and despite the fact that not everyone has access to organic fair trade happiness) so it may be necessary to prepare a no-tears option to please all of your guests.
After all, isn’t pleasing others what life’s all about?
FEMME VISIBILITY
My queerness
is not unlike
a cat on a leash.
It’s awkward
people don’t always understand why it’s happening
or how it works
but it’s not hurting anyone
so it goes mostly unbothered.
The difference
is that you can see
a cat
on a leash.
NOTES ON DEPRESSION
I.
I have clawed my way to okay and it will
just have to do for now.
I sent my body out ahead of me, a guide line tied to her foot
hold her above me
a sullen balloon woman.
I wait to see how many scars she returns with before deciding
whether to join the world whole
or to leave her to sway with the wind and seem at peace
a distraction, while I tunnel out.
II.
My latest hobby is screaming.
I scream into things.
It was just pillows at first,
now it is anything I think can hold my trauma.
I have haunted the whole house.
III.
There was a brilliant surprise party here 3 months ago. I have been unable to bring myself to toss out the wilted balloons or to sweep up the confetti. I didn’t want it to end. A celebration is just a way of begging the good things to stay. A false promise that we could always be just like this, a false promise worth clinging to, worth living in the aftermath of.
A PLAGUE OF DOUBTS
Maybe, if I did not
try so hard
panic so often
flinch so easily
enjoy the attention from the married men
fuck the man with the girlfriend every time
he calls
like the God-feeling of that balloon boy’s
heart under my heel
insist on standing up for myself
choose my work over them
need so much alone time
leave the church
give it up on the first date
make them wait so long
cry in front of them
look so mean
tell them I need them
need them
ignore the red flags
search for the red flags in silence
try to save them despite my own undertow
compare this one to the last one
compromise so little
compromise so much
take them at their word
give them mine
show off the scars
miss the bus
try to convince myself it is not real
stay when I could still leave
know my worth
talk so loud
have so many feelings
want it so badly
keep looking for it
expect it—
everyone keeps saying it happens when you least do
HOW TO EAT YOUR FEELINGS: ANGER
You will need:
-2 to 3 boxes of Klondike Bars any flavor
-1 jar of Nutella
-1 polar bear costume
Build an igloo around your head out of Klondike bars using Nutella
as a bonding agent.
Pretend you are a polar bear.
Eat your head free.
Release the rage.
Feeds:
One Very Angry Polar Bear
GLORY IN TWO PARTS
What you think you mean when you say that I Glorify Obesity
is that I am an undeserved celebration,
a gluttonous mass of unrepent,
a patron saint of unhealth,
a pageant of sloth and wheeze and uncontrol,
a gasping-heart Madonna.
You think you mean: how can she possibly raise her fat face
to the sun in worship
rather than submitting to the gravity of shame?
that I am a sickness rolled in caramel and body glitter
a fatted golden calf in a sugar-glazed crown,