Kyla Jamieson
In all my nightmares
I’m a model again, on set
trying not to eat or lose
my mind. When my body
was my product I always felt
almost run out, like one day
I’d wake up and none
of me would be left. At eighteen
my agent told me vodka
shots and splenda
and sent me to Sydney
to turn me into a cool girl.
Back in New York
I binge ate and changed
my name to Kyla Love
because I thought love
was good and hadn’t watched
porn yet. It’s embarrassing.
Your Dear Kyla poems
make me feel better
about my name, though it
means lovely and I can’t
relate to femininity. Kayla,
I’m at the bus depot
and I’m so cold. The thick
arms of a man in a t-shirt
hang bare at his sides. I think
of asking him to hug me.
Photo credit Michelle Ford
Kyla Jamieson lives and relies on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Sḵwxwú7mesh and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her work has appeared in Poetry Is Dead, SAD Mag, Room magazine, and ELLE Canada, and online for Montecristo, VICE, and GUTS Canadian Feminist magazine. Find her at kylajamieson.tumblr.com, kylajamieson.tumblr.com, as @kyjamieson on Instagram, or on a rock next to a river. This poem is for Kayla Czaga. plenitudemagazine.ca/naanwich-was-the-last-thing/
