It's All Right

it’s all right

daddy had other lives to live,

other daughters,

brighter, thinner, quieter.

it’s all right

mommy’s mind was a bird

with broken wings,

flailing against the bars

of herself.

it’s all right

I’ve always been heavy—

too much flesh,

too much need,

too much me.

chubby girls are good at laughing,

to drown out the tears.

it's all right

Snotty Sally’s lawyer heels

clack against courtroom tiles -

I’ll never wear shoes like that.

and friends are just people

who’d leave anyway.

it’s all right

the kitchen reeks of peculiar fats,

and I wear the smell like

a second skin.

money is money, right?

even if it clings

like grease to my hands.

it’s all right

what’s a gangbang?

just a room,

just bodies,

just a mirror

I refuse to look into.

it’s all right

how forty dollars an hour

buys silence.

I was never good at being

anything but the bottom.

maybe that’s all I was built for.

it’s all right

the boss called me “cute,”

and I laughed,

because I thought he meant it.

it’s all right

if my face hit the floor—

concrete is kinder

than the eyes of men

as they zip up and walk away.

it’s all right

the harbor waits, patient,

its waters whispering

secrets to the stars.

it cradles the moonlight

like an offering,

and I wonder if it

would cradle me the same.

it’s all right

the drunk down the way

might tell the cops later—

a silhouette,

a ripple,

a flicker of something

he’ll swear he saw

but can’t quite recall.

it’s all right,

because I’ve always been

better at vanishing

than at being seen.

it’s

all

so

so

right.