"No Chocolate Ice Cream in Stars Hollow" and "For God So Loved the WAP," two poems by Khalisa Rae
I Love to Hate My Gilmore Girls Obsession
There is No Chocolate Ice Cream in Stars Hollow or On Getting Help for My Obsession with Gilmore
I think of Lorelai’s love / of food and coffee and how whte
privilege is always finished bowl and feasting/ consuming
even the carton/never belly-room enough for
consequences/ I love all the ways I’m forced to bask in wht
bodies embracing/expected to cream from 2-ply paper lips
pressing together/ a nest of hair knotting
like dingy shoelaces/how she never thinks of her fifty flavor
choices--a multitude of men pining for her seen and centered
ass/ when you’re a straight whte woman, the love triangle is
your sweet inheritance/hand-spun in caucasian confection/
everyone wants to dip their tongue into her/ pop rox their
taste buds on anglo fizz ecstasy/ a fro-yo
of vanilla brain freeze/
while us queer Black women sit patient for our four
lines, 50 dollars, and a Sag credit/ waiting for sexual
tension to build between her and diner
boy/ meanwhile, I would have fcked him and her
and fled/cause I never know what’s good for me
and even when I do, I leave/was never taught
how to stay frozen/cone-gripped and candy-hearted/
but you, you learned/bcuz u are everywhere/ snow
white showed you a woman is only desirable
when she is immovable and waiting/ to be carved
into. while us brown girls never stick around
long enough for you to lick the edges /we know
we’ll melt if we stay still.
For God So Loved the WAP
Broken Sestina for Cardi B’s WAP ft. Megan Thee Stallion
And what is a woman but a cavernous pussy
collapsing after men made her a dam?
Rushing water above fractured oak, afraid
to land over the cliff and drop down finger-first.
scared the quake will leave us splintered.
What does it mean to push past the splintering
to reclaim the running water of pussy?
To say amen to the faucet spilling coins—
all the pennies you saved to toss and forget.
Now, she has reached a reservoir of fingers
gliding out and in. What is a woman unafraid?
She is a brook, a stream, a whole damn
ocean. And what becomes of the splintered wood? She builds
a home in the depth of the stroke— unafraid a home in the
mess of her gushing geyser. And what is a pussy but a boiling
spring? Hot eruption of minerals and salt-brine, spouting off
heat to melt the coldest coin. Damn
What is a woman but a stream of fingers
waiting to run off. To spill sediment salt
from fuck boys, who thought of us a damn
store-bought container, fish tank pussy
to hold his school of splintering trout.
When we say go deeper, we mean to dive unafraid to
the bottom an open mouth bass, to swallow the salty
seaweed. To run rough tongues over our bleeding pussy
stones. To drink and be full. Now, unsplintering
full-bellied and gaping, our floodwater fingers
rush alive and unafraid. Watch the dam
she will build from its splinters.
The grit and stone she will cleanse with salt.
Watch her wet and waiting, for pussy
pleasured oak. Spark a live-fire—
swear this fountain wasn’t home.
Swear the water.
Swear it fire. Swear it home.
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