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.