Ike and Tina Turner photo courtesy of Getty Images
KAYLA WHEELER
We Can't Stop Buying the Whore
a Miley Cyrus/Anne Sexton Mashup
This house is a hard hell shaking,
a strip club stuffed with night. Red cups
and sweaty bodies searing the flesh until
it is nice and juicy. You are a glass I have
paid to shatter, the boat I have rented
by the hour and we can't stop dancing. All night
we own love, take Molly like girls or roast beef.
I vomit into your hand like a jackpot getting
turned up, warm my trembling
mouth, get a line in the bathroom.
Under your bra I swallow the pieces down
with my spit. You are the sunlight I have purchased
and if you're ready to go I'll steer until you run
aground. Forget god (haters), it's our party
we can do what we want.
Use Me Any Way You Wanna
after Tina Turner
“I'm Ike Turner, turn up, baby you know I don't play.
Now eat the cake, Anna Mae, said, 'eat the cake,
Anna Mae!'” - Jay Z
1960.
A new sound erupts over East St. Louis
like a siren. Anna Mae Bullock's voice is boiling
water spilling over every stage. She is one half
of what will go down in history as the most explosive
R&B duo of all time. The other half she calls
her brother, a skinny man with perfect hair
and ambitions almost as big as his hands. The King
of Kings. He selected Little Ann to be his leading lady
out of countless screaming girls. Renames her Tina, gives her
his last name. Brother, she calls him.
The Ike and Tina Turner Revue is a match made
in music. Televisions across America ignite
with the hottest act the soul circuit has to offer.
Despite the pair's success, producers utter words like
solo, diva, starlet. They hang in the air like a haunting
refrain. It is the first time Ike Turner makes a fist
without a microphone inside it. What do you do when
the star you created outshines you? Rip out her vocal cords
to string your new guitar with? No. You'd never do that.
Take her out to celebrate. Order a cake layered thick
as jealousy. Make it something sweet, southern
buttercream. Tell the waitress to bring the whole thing at once,
insist on cutting it yourself. Say something about saving her
the trouble. When Anna Mae tells you she isn't hungry, how
can you believe her? The big mouthed bitch devoured every dream
you had in one efficient bite. Give her what she wants. Smash
the cake in her face like a wedding joke gone wrong until
you think she might purge her voice into the shape of an apology
on her dinner plate. When the entire diner cowers
in the corner, tell it there is nothing to fucking see here.
Count how many eyes refuse to leave your body, it's been a while
since you were the most important person in the room.
On the car ride home, ignore the constant flinch,
the way her body stiffens like stage fright.
Remember the first song you wrote just for her
to sing: You know you love him, you can't understand why
he treats you like he do, when he's such a good man.
In thirty years you will learn of your induction
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from a California
prison cell. You are not incarcerated for beating Tina Turner.
Cocaine ate a hole in your nose but she does not
wear a single scar. You make sure every reporter knows
this, even when they don't ask The Question.
You wear denial like a jail suit, blame the stutter
on the nosebleeds, but it doesn't matter if anyone believes
you. Some rapper who thinks himself a god will glorify
what you did while trying to become one. It will be the first
single on his wife's new album, and everyone's favorite
to sing along to.
Kayla Wheeler is a poet and pottymouth from New Hampshire. Her work can most recently be found in The Orange Room Review, Ghost House Review, Wicked Banshee, and nin. She is the first ever Northbeast Underground Team Slam champion and represented Slam Free Or Die at the 2013 National Poetry Slam. She cares about feminist things and being good.
a Miley Cyrus/Anne Sexton Mashup
This house is a hard hell shaking,
a strip club stuffed with night. Red cups
and sweaty bodies searing the flesh until
it is nice and juicy. You are a glass I have
paid to shatter, the boat I have rented
by the hour and we can't stop dancing. All night
we own love, take Molly like girls or roast beef.
I vomit into your hand like a jackpot getting
turned up, warm my trembling
mouth, get a line in the bathroom.
Under your bra I swallow the pieces down
with my spit. You are the sunlight I have purchased
and if you're ready to go I'll steer until you run
aground. Forget god (haters), it's our party
we can do what we want.
Use Me Any Way You Wanna
after Tina Turner
“I'm Ike Turner, turn up, baby you know I don't play.
Now eat the cake, Anna Mae, said, 'eat the cake,
Anna Mae!'” - Jay Z
1960.
A new sound erupts over East St. Louis
like a siren. Anna Mae Bullock's voice is boiling
water spilling over every stage. She is one half
of what will go down in history as the most explosive
R&B duo of all time. The other half she calls
her brother, a skinny man with perfect hair
and ambitions almost as big as his hands. The King
of Kings. He selected Little Ann to be his leading lady
out of countless screaming girls. Renames her Tina, gives her
his last name. Brother, she calls him.
The Ike and Tina Turner Revue is a match made
in music. Televisions across America ignite
with the hottest act the soul circuit has to offer.
Despite the pair's success, producers utter words like
solo, diva, starlet. They hang in the air like a haunting
refrain. It is the first time Ike Turner makes a fist
without a microphone inside it. What do you do when
the star you created outshines you? Rip out her vocal cords
to string your new guitar with? No. You'd never do that.
Take her out to celebrate. Order a cake layered thick
as jealousy. Make it something sweet, southern
buttercream. Tell the waitress to bring the whole thing at once,
insist on cutting it yourself. Say something about saving her
the trouble. When Anna Mae tells you she isn't hungry, how
can you believe her? The big mouthed bitch devoured every dream
you had in one efficient bite. Give her what she wants. Smash
the cake in her face like a wedding joke gone wrong until
you think she might purge her voice into the shape of an apology
on her dinner plate. When the entire diner cowers
in the corner, tell it there is nothing to fucking see here.
Count how many eyes refuse to leave your body, it's been a while
since you were the most important person in the room.
On the car ride home, ignore the constant flinch,
the way her body stiffens like stage fright.
Remember the first song you wrote just for her
to sing: You know you love him, you can't understand why
he treats you like he do, when he's such a good man.
In thirty years you will learn of your induction
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from a California
prison cell. You are not incarcerated for beating Tina Turner.
Cocaine ate a hole in your nose but she does not
wear a single scar. You make sure every reporter knows
this, even when they don't ask The Question.
You wear denial like a jail suit, blame the stutter
on the nosebleeds, but it doesn't matter if anyone believes
you. Some rapper who thinks himself a god will glorify
what you did while trying to become one. It will be the first
single on his wife's new album, and everyone's favorite
to sing along to.
Kayla Wheeler is a poet and pottymouth from New Hampshire. Her work can most recently be found in The Orange Room Review, Ghost House Review, Wicked Banshee, and nin. She is the first ever Northbeast Underground Team Slam champion and represented Slam Free Or Die at the 2013 National Poetry Slam. She cares about feminist things and being good.
