i’m reading a book about nuns / by which i mean sisters / by which i mean holy / by which i mean this morning the sky smelled of rain which is, i think, divine / my friends call you judas & debate if the two of you were fucking / but i still keep your bottle of ketchup in the fridge just in case / by which i mean loyalty, too, is sticky / like blood / or sweet, cheap wine / i met a girl at our bar & i think i’m in love / i met a boy at our bar & no this time, it’s forreal / i went to the cheesecake factory / drank two coronaritas on a wednesday / kissed an engineer who didn’t laugh at my jokes / watched a doctor carve a scar into my belly which makes my body a ghost, the old one i mean, unstained & reading next to you on the beach, a bracelet meaning best friends and forever tangled around my wrist / in april ants invaded my bathroom and i let them / (you know i’m not the killing kind) / i think they know how to play dead / bodies stunned against my terrible shadow / knees bruised from the asking / all spring i have waited / all spring i have been playing dead too / hey remember when the bartender chased after the door closed behind us / said you’re the life of this party / begged come back inside / fun with you had the devotion of a prayer & my dad is getting older & i’m still terrible at segues / i did crow pose in yoga / rode the bus to the end of the line / got too high / hoped you’d call / danced in the living room / pretended it wasn’t pathetic / it’s impossible to say this but somehow i survived / it’s impossible to say this but somehow i did it without you by my side.
Kristen Zory King is a writer and teaching artist based in Washington, DC. Recent work can be found in Electric Lit, The Citron Review, Stanchion Zine, The Jarnal: Volume Two with Mason Jar Press, and Cobra Milk, among others. She is currently working on a collection of flash fiction stories. Learn more or be in touch at www.KristenZoryKing.com.
(Leo Sun/Venus, Cancer Moon, Libra Rising)
Recent Posts
- Vessel
Emily Costa - On Wednesday I Get Ashes at the Drive-Thru
Katelyn Botsford Tucker - How To Lie On Your Back Underwater And Not Drown Your Fool Self
Leah Tuckwiller - The Day Ends. The Day Ends. The Day Ends.
Shira Haus - And if this is where you live, welcome home
Kelsey Lepperd - After Saying John Ashbery’s Poetry Is Like Getting Out of a Bath When It’s Still Warm, And My Workshop Instructor Laughs and Tells Us He’s Going to Tell His Friend I Said That, Repeating What I Said in a Lower Voice, Not Like “John Ashbery’s Poetry Is Like Getting Out of a Bath When It’s Still Warm” but More Like “John Ashbery’s poetry is like getting out of a bath when it’s still warm” Because People Don’t Normally Talk in Capitals, and Did Y’all Know I Visited the Capitol in Fifth Grade on a School Field Trip as a “Safety Patrol,” Back When I Didn’t Know the Responsibilities Behind Patrolling a School, Before An Intoxicated Man Intruded My High School Last Year and the School Cop, on Their First Day, Didn’t Know What to Do, so the Local Cops Shot the Intruder in the Same Building I Was in
Caitlin Villacrusis