Kayla King

I’ll Make This List to Live Again


I. You

Just as the haze of this hell began, I opened the pages to Sylvia. 
There’s something about curling into the chaos of a chest cold, 
which permits this Plathian obsession. But maybe the better place 
to begin exists in that perfect splay of broken legs 
across the wall. Perhaps I’ll frame the death 
of the spider. It’s gotten me through the past few days 
with no voice. First words were a croak, so I said nothing 
more. And once again, there are too many thoughts; 
the stoic sabotage of a guarded heart. 
 
Remind me of those other days before I read Her words, 
how I didn’t know to listen for a bragging heart beating on 
and on and on with reassurances of self. But, like always, 
I wonder if you would’ve liked this version of me better. 
Such a question might’ve seemed nonsensical 
then, because we were still trying to pretend 
we were older. Now I pluck my own silvered strands 
from temples, to keep in jars, to line my purses, 
to carry out into the world as a talisman 
against the act of slipping back. 

         

 

II. You 

Such a lovely sky. Just there. Beyond the windows, 
colors remain braided together into one of those palettes 
people write about. But not you. I told someone else 
what you did, just before this sickness seeped deeper 
into my throat.  It’s a silly thought, but perhaps the universe 
has taken my voice as a penance. 
 
I never said it was okay, because it wasn’t. I imagine you 
crafting that text curled up beneath the desk with a glass of wine, 
eyes closed, the same way you used to write through the brutality 
of other things. The image goes vintage at the edges 
the longer I picture you in that place. But it’s temporary, 
as most things are these days. 
 
Ours wasn’t a chance meeting. I’d heard your name 
in passing. And it took too many minutes for words 
to find a place between us, but of course, I always chose 
those over another poison, because the taste, almost dizzy 
with drunk, seemed so sweet. I think I dazzled you 
with another rant about the Oxford comma. You didn’t look 
down at the foam fading from the edges of your beer or back
at your best friend. But now, there is only the mess and no one 
to tidy the room with the bed where I can’t move. I must sleep 
until the sleeping sets this something somewhere soft 
and softer. Like your smile, perhaps.

 

 

III. You  

There is a word I recite in my mind: oubliette
the place of forgetting. I plead with myself to keep you 
from those dregs as I drift beneath the sea of sleep again.
Fever takes me back to that place I so loved. Still do, 
I suppose. I think you’d like that city. There’s a hidden street 
past the park. There’s a gate and cobblestones and a canopy of trees. 
I think if we walked through together, it might take us 
to a different time. But I haven’t told you this. It’s better written. 
I think you might understand, because I’ve seen the look 
cross your face, but maybe I’m too used to the stories, 
the fictitious. 
 
I unfurl into the memory, because it is then and this isn’t now,
because the chills remind this is just the cold and the fever 
and the hallucination will haunt if I don’t list you out 
into all the people you might’ve been without me. And so I do: 
you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you.
And I imagine you tracing my edges before feeling for the back 
of neck. You always had a theory that my stories lived there. 
And I will keep you now. Like a fragile bird, perhaps I’ll crush you 
in my hands, always holding too tight.

 

 

IV. You  

And to you, you feversick nightmare; we’ve all got a part to play. 
You walk the halls of an old house, but you know the steps all the same. 
The wallpaper reminds that somewhere you would be better. 
And it really is such a lovely sky to converse with at night. You talk too much 
most days, and then you walk away. And the spirals and the houses 
and too many cups of coffee can’t cure this nothing. Obsession 
wakes you through the chills. And so you list 
the first and the second and the next and the last. 
Don’t let it consume you. 
         
Don’t let it consume. 
Don’t let it. 
Don’t let. 
Don’t.
         
As always, there’s the wondering. You realize we pay more 
for ifs than here and nows. And you sweat through the sheets now. 
It’s the middle of the night. You wake back to yourself 
and become an I again. 

 

 

V. You         

I told myself I wouldn’t. It applies to both this hungry ache 
for better words and this hunger, waiting in line behind 
too many cars with more thoughts than I wish to have. 
They greet me, voices crackling through the speaker, 
but the voice isn’t yours. I miss the way you talk through 
an idea from beginning to end. 
         
Will that be all? 
         
Yes.
         
I pull around. 
 
I make perfect change, pinching coins between fingers while I wait. 
There is the smell of freshman year. Much has changed in that time. 
As it must. But still I like the bitter aftertaste of nostalgia. 
Disguise it now with the first bite. 
         
I hope you’ll understand the duality between missing you 
and devouring this Crunchwrap Supreme with everything 
mixed all at once: the seasoning, the silk of sour cream, 
add the sauce with each bite. Meticulous. Predictable. One bite. 
A second. Three bites. Wipe mouth. It all makes too much sense. 
         
But the years.  
         
I wipe the drip of sauce from my chin, admire the leafy shape 
left behind on the napkin. Perhaps I should divine my life 
in these shapes. A fingernail. A candle’s flame. The sun medallion 
dipping between breasts. I read them like the three card spread. 
Temperance. The Empress. Judgement. One 
by one. 
 
This was never meant to be a ghost story, 
but the smell of Taco Bell will linger in the car 
for days to come, a haunting reminder 
of your absence here tonight.


Kayla King is the author of These Are the Women We Write About, a micro-collection of poetry published by The Poetry Annals. Kayla's fiction and poetry has been published by or is forthcoming from Firewords Magazine, Sobotka Literary Magazine, Fearsome Critters, Barren Magazine, and Pink Plastic House among others. You can follow Kayla’s writing journey over at her website: kaylakingbooks.com or her twitterings @KaylaMKing.