The Farthest Thing From Okay

I’d say

That I’m doing okay

If okay means having

A heart led astray

I’m not okay, okay?

Because okay is a term

That describes a full-time

Teacher or office worker

Who is content with life

Who is the past the mid-life blues

Who is actually doing

Okay.

I’d say

I’m not okay because I want to take a piece of sodden cloth and shove it down a rusted pipeline, clog it and watch the thick grey water leak through the edges then rush over the bolts and I want to take a sledgehammer and crack the kitchen sink in two, let the water flood the tiled floor, the cat running for life, the half washed dishes sinking to the bottom, the plastic mugs rising to the top like buoys on a river of madness. Then I want the water to rush through the entire apartment and stain the carpets and seep through the floor so that the neighbours downstairs get disgusting little drops of kitchen water on their heads, and complain to the manager that I should be terminated. I want the whole apartment to be a jumble of paintings with gaping holes cut through the middle (right through the face), with empty cans of iced tea swimming around like scared ducks, with pages of my diary turning into newspaper mush, with all the televisions and computer screens getting electrified and sparkling like little fireworks, giving out a loud pop before their last breath, with all my possessions buried underneath one another like in a time capsule, consumed by the brackish kitchen water that I purposely unleashed- so now the apartment is a clear representation of what is going on in my mind- a hideous, violent torrent of rage that can only be portrayed through metaphor, because

I am so hurt that

I am angry

An anger I have never felt so strong

That it eats at my arteries

Lemon juice on a sting

Worse, hydrogen peroxide in my eyes

Or you know that feeling when you

Have a stray strand of skin sticking out

By your fingernail? (From lack of vitamins or something)

And then you pick at it and rip it fresh

And let the blood gush out and let it just sit there like a red blob

Like the thick custard in a Boston Cream donut

Just a dollop of blood to remind you that

You are so hurt that

You are angry

So if you ask me how I’m doing

I’ll say I’m okay

Due to mere courtesy

When really I’m on the other spectrum

Of anything to do with okayness

And I’m ashamed of too much

And I’m thinking too much

And my mind is a broken kitchen sink so

How can I possibly lie

One more time

And say I’m okay?

With all these thoughts sc a tt e r ed

(Not that it mattered

To anyone asking me if I’m okay)

Okay?

Comments

Happiness is Pink Jellybeans

Happiness is jumping in a pool of pink jellybeans Feeling the cool candy on my skin Happiness is enjoying the pleasures of life Without worrying about confessing my sins Whoever said that we are gluttons For biting juicy pears on the beach Must never have felt the sand in their toes They must have placed their own soul out of reach And what about greed? It's not all that bad To bury a pile of chestnuts for the spring All animals do it, so why shouldn't we? If it's greedy to love yourself, let it be Lust is the one that makes pastors blush Yet it's one of the greatest joys in the body A kiss and a dance, laughter and romance Why did we ever label this happiness as naughty? Have you ever seen a cat sad when it naps? It is okay to sometimes be lazy The body needs rest as does the mind Or the world will set fire from the crazy If happiness is a sin, then let me smile in hell Looking up at the do-gooders above For to live is to err, to cry, and to sing Happiness is pink jell...

Lost in Rio

Jesus looks over The lost souls and bones below In the jungle sun To witness such beauty And such devastation God painted with one brushstroke Merry men sing Holes in their shoes The dark night lit up By police sirens And the crescent moon Bats flail around Like me, lost in the jungle Eyes glaring all around I hope they're monkeys Or jaguars I hope I can keep a piece of This country with me Safe in my pocket It smells like tropical rain And feels like The clam shells Washed up on the shore It tastes like fried bananas And heavily salted steak Sounds like seabirds cawing Samba on the streets And looks like a page From a storybook About parrots and palm trees Of finding a golden treasure A magnificent, uneasy place When she sun goes down So do we Leaving the night To the creepy crawlers And innocent stray cats

I See the Fire

Every time I close my eyes, I see the fire That aches where you burned me last I am a woman of the earth and the cool soil Where life ferments and earthworms roam I can't survive the lava that pulses beneath The crust of this beautiful land Yellow dandelions piercing the grass Emerald pockmarked with gold I wish sometimes that I wasn't a woman of the earth I wish that I were stronger I wish that my bones were made of steel And my heart of flame So that I wouldn't fall apart at every Crude remark, every Light tug, every Covert attack That rolls off the back of a fire-woman Instead, my skin is transluscent Like the morning dew My muscles pieced together With tree sap and mushrooms What's an earth-woman to do In a world engulfed by fire? But root herself firmly to one place Grow a network of twisting underground limbs And create a stable home To escape the chaos of this world

Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

Search This Blog