Talking to Myself by Carolynn Kingyens

You have made us
for yourself,
and our hearts are restless
until it rests in you.

— Saint Augustine



A seminary student,
whom I once knew
back in college, an old friend,
who'd lose his faith entirely
after one of the little girls
at a makeshift church
he helped pastor for a time
in Mawlynnong,
the one with the glass eye
the color of jade,
and the cutest giggle,
was raped and strangled
by a group of barefoot
village boys, who'd
plead guilty, then
disappear in the night,
one by one.

"Where was God for that little girl?"
he asked me over bottles
of Stella Artois and falafel
after reconnecting on Facebook
after a decade
of ghosting each other.

An atheist now, and an insomniac,
who'd get high every night
to Coltrane records
and warm baths,
"a routine," he said, "that coaxed
him to sleep —just fine."

He told me that he didn't mind
when his glasses clinked loudly
inside the kitchen cupboard
everytime the silver bullet
subway train roared
underneath his first floor
apartment in Clinton Hill,
that the sound reminded
him of a cousin's wedding,
when all the guests would
raise their goblet glasses high
and clink them with knives,
forks, spoons, in unison,
prodding the groom to kiss
his bride, on demand.

He told me the story of Joey Cabrio,
the kind, homeless man
he befriended outside his apartment.

He told me about their deep discussions
around the philosophy of Saint Augustine,
and their shared love for Coltrane,
Lester Young, and Johnny Hodges,
who'd end up stabbed to death
over some stupid, imaginary turf war
between a fellow homeless person
off his meds.

"Why are humans
so evil to one another?"
he asked me, now buzzed.

I wanted to say my canned
Christian response to pretty
much all of life's troubles,
the only one I knew —
Because of sin,
Because of free will,
but chose to stay silent
instead.

He told me that every
time I prayed to my
invisible, Judeo-Christian
God that I was merely
talking to myself.

"Do you enjoy talking
to yourself?" he'd quip back
with a fox-like grin.

When I was ten years old,
I came to the realization,
on my own,
that for all those years,
all those Saturday afternoons
at my best friend's house
playing Barbies in her basement —
with her Barbie Dreamhouse,
with her Barbie Camper,
with her Barbie McDonald's,
Jen owned all the good toys;
acting out brutal, betraying scenarios
to put our Barbies through —
the cheating scandals with Ken;
the heartbreak of the blonde Barbie
with the bad haircut;
the runaway Skipper;
the terminal illness of Jazzercise Barbie,
that all along I was playing a merciless god,
myself.

And it was at that moment
I was done with Barbies for good,
moving on to the pretty,
Roman Catholic boys
of St. Anselm's Parish;
once French kissing an alter boy,
who resembled Ralph Macchio
of The Karate Kid
during an innocuous, pubescent
closet game of Seven Minutes
in Heaven
at Jen's twelfth birthday party,
down in her basement,
where I used to talk to myself
for hours.



Carolynn Kingyens is the author of two poetry collections: Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound and Coupling, both published by Kelsay Books and available on Amazon. In addition to poetry, Kingyens writes essays, book and film reviews, and short fiction. She is presently working on the completion of a short fiction manuscript with the working title Attachment Theory that consists of twelve short stories, ten of the twelve stories previously published. Her short story "Bye-Bye, Miss American Pie" was selected for Best of Fiction List, 2021, by Across the Margin, a Brooklyn arts and culture webzine. She has been married to her husband and best friend for almost twenty-three years, and they share two beautiful, kind, and very creative daughters.