How to Marry Mr. Rich – by KATIE LEWINGTON

How to marry Mr Rich
is the title of a book
published through Amazon Kindle
written by a woman named Melody Summers

and I suppose
was written
(or at least I hope)
to be controversial

for the views in the text

are rather special

Melody Summers
believes in women
finding a rich man
to take care of her
and children

naturally in
the introduction
alone
I found my blood
begun to boil –

apparently
almost every woman

dreams of marrying a man
who can afford a luxurious lifestyle
diamond wedding ring and dreamy
honeymoon –
really?
do you know the reality?

you can find this man

whilst shopping

at your job

walking the dog

at a nudist beach

or even at a Halloween costume party

in theory it is all well and good
many of us are aware that there are wealthy men in the world
with too much money they
know not what to do with

and they think they can buy a woman

as simply as picking up
bread in the supermarket

as little as I may know
being only twenty years old –

having clothes jewellery
books ah poetry
bought for you
is wonderful –

as the occasional gift

but then to be surrounded by material goods

and realise you have not been validated –

he will still roll over in bed
once he is done with fucking you dumb

call you silly
when your anxiety
causes you to lay awake

in paranoid panic worry

watch you struggle to tug
a cork from its bottle

roll his eyes ‘give it here’

because, of course

you don’t become successful

without having popped a few
champagne corks

yet
increase the size of your clothes
no?

lose weight around your middle –
shave moisturize

good Lord don’t get old for God’s sake

remain silent during dinner
because all you talk of
is Emily Pankhurst
and the lack of
garlic bread

on the menu –

to get back
to the book
which inspired this poem

I did read it

62 pages

I had to have a cold shower
after

to stop myself

from punching a hole in the wall

why is it a radical notion
for women
to take care of themselves

and be independent

to

rely on our own strengths

too long we have been placed onto a pedestal –

been somebody else’s

high up-
standards
which
we shame ourselves

with

and feel inadequate

men need to cry
be less afraid
of
being perceived as gay –

for what

behaving feminine

and women

need to care
less for them

and more for ourselves

if we know

what we need

then we have to ask for it

I was told my options were hairdressing
or childcare

leave the men to study
engineering

a nice

man will

pick you up
eventually

behave yourself
in the
meantime

it isn’t 1952

it is 2016

and the world is changing

I am changing –

I don’t even know
where home is
anymore

I feel as if
I am Alice
in Wonderland

I have had many illusions shattered

in the past 7 months

the world is not as I thought it was

my partner is not the person I thought he was

and I am not yet the person I want to be.

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Katie Lewington likes to review the books she reads, listen to music, daydream, watch Cary Grant films, help The Pithead Chapel journal and Transcending Shadows review and Punks Write Poems Press sift through their submissions, sniff 50 year old poetry tomes and enjoy the atheistic display of many literary magazines (She has been published in some of these) Contact her through Twitter @idontwearahat and her bloghttps://katiecreativewriterblog.wordpress.com