Ways We Understand

​There is a bridge between you
and sleep. My house to your house.
And there is an ocean beneath it,
but I pay no mind.
I don’t wish to have the nightmare
again where I’m drowned. I can’t breathe.
As always I wake drenched in sweat.


You will live forever, because you do not dream.


You sleep on your side, and I curl over.
​I am much smaller. But I am the big spoon,
and you remain little, unmoving.
Before our first night together,
you warned me you would look dead.


Resolve our love to seconds,
rather than infinities. I tell you this
when close creates claustrophobia
of anything more than a shadow
surrounding me. I am the Big Dipper,
and you are a teaspoon.


You would not promise the moon.


You knew galaxies gave me anxiety
dreams where I woke to find myself
biting cuticle clean from finger.
Old penny blood in mouth was unlucky.
And I would not pick up on the heads side,
though I craved cranial convergence
between us.


Tonight you close the windows,
chide chill in your nose.
But I hear crickets chirp,
legs rubbing together.
You said you liked the sound
as I slipped on my jeans;
I thought that meant you liked
the sound of leaving.
​

Kayla King is a graduate of the Mountainview MFA. She 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 Plath Poetry Project, Dear Damsels, Figroot Press, Ink In Thirds Magazine, Firewords Magazine, Sobotka Literary Magazine, and Twelve Winters Press, among others. You can follow Kayla’s writing journey over at her website: kaylakingbooks.com or her twitterings @KaylaMKing.