A Sunday series from RVA Magazine featuring writers from Richmond and Virginia
Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now.
This week, we’re featuring a powerful multi-part work by Kaylee Walton, a Virginia-based writer whose poetry captures the ache of memory and the quiet beauty of survival. Across six linked sections, Walton charts the emotional terrain of childhood, widowhood, love, and loss, all grounded in vivid Southern imagery.
You can reach her at kayleewalton.writing@gmail.com
If you’d like to be featured, send your work to hello@rvamag.com with the subject line “Writer’s Block.”
I. The Taxidermy of Childhood
The blow-up vinyl pool exhales chlorine and melted popsicles, its blue sides sagging like the belly of a starving animal. You press your cheek to its sticky surface at noon, the sound of summer leaking into Virginia grass.
The Cheetah Girls blanket lives at the foot of your bed like shed skin. Velvet spots gone bald from anxious fumbling during thunderstorms. You trace the faded leopard print daisy (what happened to your dreams?) while the ceiling fan chops the August heat into manageable slices.
Cigarette burns bloom like carnations in the shag carpet. You dig your toes into the nicotine-yellow fibers, pretending they’re the mane of a lion. Roar, says the lighter in your father’s hand. Roar, says the smoke curling from your mother’s lips.
Mud is a language here. Thick and vowel-heavy between your toes after the garden hose floods the backyard. You write your name in it — K-A-Y-L-E-E — then stomp it into oblivion before anyone can read it.
Dew clings to your ankles like cold kisses as you chase fireflies. The grass conspires with the dark to trip you. You laugh anyway. The night smells like wet earth and the metallic tang of the swing set chains.
Crayons melt together in the backseat of the Ford Focus. A rainbow tumor growing on the vinyl seat. You peel it off in one satisfying sheet — wax skin, wax skin — and press it to your tongue when no one’s looking.
Your pencil teeth marks tell the truth:
I was here
I was scared
I needed something to hold onto.
Stuffed animals multiply when you’re not looking. A pastel militia taking over your bed. You line them up by softness: the matted bear from the hospital gift shop, the unicorn with one eye chewed off by the dog, the dolphin that smells like sunscreen and stale love.
Autumn arrives in crunches. You take exaggerated steps, a giant trampling a village of leaf-people. Their skeletons shriek under your Converse. You pretend not to hear.
Corduroy pants worn to gauze at the knees. Rubbed raw from climbing maple trees and driveway asphalt prayers. Each rib of fabric a tally mark: how many times you fell and got back up.
Meemaw’s couch is a sanctuary. Starched white cotton with hand-stitched daisies that never fray. You bury your face in the cushions and inhale — Downy and lemon Pledge and the faintest whisper of Pond’s Dry Skin Cream. Here, no one yells. Here, the ashtrays are for Tootsie Rolls. Here, her knotted hands — swollen with arthritis but still warm — braid your hair while Dragon Tales murmurs like a lullaby. She wipes your muddy feet with a damp washcloth before you climb up, every time, even when you pretend not to notice.
Your father’s hands are drought maps. Knuckles like cracked riverbeds. You press your fingertip to a fissure and wonder: how much pain can a line hold?
Mom’s nails click against the kitchen counter. Acrylic talons polished to surgical gloss. You watch them dissect a rotisserie chicken with terrifying precision. The knife flashes and suddenly you understand why the stuffed animals play dead when she enters the room.
Beer bottles glint on the porch steps. Green glass wearing lipstick stains like war paint. You shake one gently, listening to the flat clink of disappointment rolling inside.
Rice erupts from the cooker in a cloud. Each grain a tiny moon landing on the laminate. You build a fort with butter pats as walls. It melts before the chicken is done.
II. Humidity, Honey, and Other Heavy Things
Virginia summer with lush greenery, cicada-shelled trees, and kudzu swallowing the fences whole. Virginia summer with salt-stung ocean air, melted ice cream dripping down sunburned wrists, and the stolen sweetness of honeysuckle on your tongue.Virginia summer with freckles blooming like constellations on your shoulders, sunsets painted in peach and lavender, and fireflies cupped gently in your palms. Virginia summer with golden hour stretching time thin, garage doors yawning open to the hum of ceiling fans, and humidity so thick you could wring it from the air. Virginia summer with mourning doves cooing you awake, rain-soaked concrete steaming under midday sun, and bare feet dancing in puddles that shimmer like liquid mercury.
Unforgiving. Unremembering. Undone.
III. I-95 North / April / (Brick & Mortar)
(concrete)
The highway is a gray tongue. It speaks in mile markers:
37… 52… 89…
Brake lights pulse like a warning. You ignore them.
(foundation)
His parents’ house:
– Tide & lavender clinging to the walls
– the couch groaning under your tangled limbs
– Rick and Morty laughter, the cannula dancing
His lungs:
– two wet paper bags collapsing
(new materials)
Gummies instead of smoke.
Corn Flakes instead of cake.
Your engagement ring, the hiss of the oxygen tank,
the way he says this isn’t how—
(architecture of the impossible)
You press your forehead to his.
Sugar on your lips.
The specialists multiply. The meds rattle in their bottles.
You build a life inside the cracks.
(home is not a place)
Home is the drive.
Home is the waiting.
Home is the in-between where love grows.
Roots through concrete.
IV. Widowhood: A Practical Guide
Section 1: Paperwork & Logistics
What to Expect:
– A clipboard that weighs more than a body
– The phrase “next of kin” circled in red
– Signatures that taste like battery acid
Helpful Tips:
– Breathe between forms (you’ll forget otherwise)
– Your wedding ring will suddenly feel both too tight and too loose
– The hospital social worker’s “I’m sorry” will sound like a recording
Section 2: Personal Effects
Common Items You’ll Receive:
– 1 (one) plastic bag resembling takeout packaging
– 1 (one) phone still warm from sitting on the charger
– 3 anxious fidget objects (see: earrings, necklace, wedding band)
– 1 (one) Redskins blanket that feels threadbare
Important Note:
Do not smell the blanket.
Do not smell the blanket.
Do not—
Section 3: Notification Protocol
Step-by-Step Instructions:
– Dial phone (hands may shake violently)
– Wait through 2.7 rings (remember to keep breathing)
– Lead with “Are you sitting down?” (this does not help)
Anticipated Reactions:
– Guttural noises (human)
– Hysterical laughter (also human)
– Theological bargaining (various deities)
Section 4: Identity Transition
Timeline:
– Minute 1: Wife
– Minute 33: Wife Who Handles Things
– Hour 4: Professional Bearer Of Bad News
– Day 2: Widow (official)
Warning:
The phrase “Thomas died” will:
a) Shrink in your mouth
b) Expand in your chest
c) Never fit quite right again
Final Note:
No one tells you how administrative grief is. How death needs notaries. How love becomes paperwork. How you’ll envy the blanket — at least it still smells like him.
V. The Weight of Palms and Dust
The moon. Wine-stained laughter. Flecks of toothpaste on a dorm room mirror. Water dripping from a faucet. Fake IDs. Visiting an unfamiliar city and feeling like I’m home. Cigarette butts. Losing my breath as we drive through a tunnel. My fingers tracing the freckles on your back. Rooms that feel so big but are so small. My world, eager in the palm of your hands.
The moon. Asking my parents. Asking my grandparents. Goodwills and clearance racks. Third floor of the courthouse. Your hand over mine, guiding the pen through the marriage license. Falling while ice skating. Finally feeling steady on my feet. Explosions of color illuminating a dark sky. A gentle tap on my shoulder. A small diamond ring. Our future, blooming in your fingertips.
The moon. Coughing up blood. A graveyard of hospital bracelets. Emergency room trips in the hush of night. Deciding between the highway’s hum and the ambulance’s wail. Pre-packed toiletry bags. Separation. Togetherness. Slipping into your bed at night. Entangled in wires. Your world, fragile in the creases of my palms.
The moon. My grandmother. Her echoing screech. Your mom. Her empty eyes and a slight shake of her head. My brother. His first day of 6th grade. Your friends. Telling them I’m so sorry. Telling them they tried everything. Telling them I wish I could have done more. How everything smelled so sterile. Silence so loud it peeled the walls. Your cold hands, sinking into mine.
The moon. Entropy. Falling asleep at sunrise. Waking up dying. Waking up okay. Body after body. High after high. Color after color. Time and time again. Music playing way too loud or way too quiet. Feeling like it’s never enough or way too much. Knowing who I am. Becoming unrecognizable. My hands, grasping at dust.
VI. This Is How the World Begins Again
They arrive like scattered stars, their light uncontainable. Backpacks swinging, shoelaces tangled, the morning clinging to them in crumbs and crinkled permission slips. At twenty-five, I am both gardener and the thing being grown: they teach me that resilience is not a lesson plan but a language, whispered in the way a child returns, day after day, to the same book, as if repetition could build a home. The classroom is not a room at all but a living thing. Cinderblock walls papered with their wild, bright creations, the air humming with the friction of small bodies learning to take up space.
Some days, the weight of it is a stone in my pocket. A small exchange, a look of knowing better, a face goes tight with something unsaid. But then, a dandelion, roots still clumped with earth, appears on my desk like a dare to believe in tenderness anyway. The quiet ones speak in gestures— a drawing left behind, a carefully folded corner of a page to mark their place in a hand-me-down book. They are the teachers here, and their curriculum is merciless in its grace: Love is not a thing you say but a thing you prove. Over and over— in the way you gently hand them the scissors, in the way you’re tired but never too tired to listen to their train of consciousness, in the way you kneel beside them to help their little minds decipher their own messy, magnificent thoughts.
This is where the world is made. Not in the hollow echo of what if, but in the stubborn, ink-smudged reality of what is. They bend over their work with the gravity of scholars, though no one has yet told them they are miracles. The system forgets, but they do not: they press their palms to the cracks and push. Every worksheet completed in wobbly letters, every gasp of understanding is a quiet rebellion. They are taught in rooms with peeling paint and donated pencils— yet still they grow. Not like weeds but like oaks. Slow, certain, reaching for a sky they’ve been promised but cannot yet see. Every day, they hand me the same quiet lesson: The world is not yet done with them.
Photo by Sara Kurfess
Support RVA Magazine. Support independent media in Richmond.
In a world where corporations and wealthy individuals now shape much of our media landscape, RVA Magazine remains fiercely independent, amplifying the voices of Richmond’s artists, musicians, and community. Since 2005, we’ve been dedicated to authentic, grassroots storytelling that highlights the people and culture shaping our city.
But we can’t do this without you. A small donation, even as little as $2 – one-time or recurring – helps us continue to produce honest, local coverage free from outside interference. Every dollar makes a difference. Your support keeps us going and keeps RVA’s creative spirit alive. Thank you for standing with independent media. DONATE HERE.
You can also show your support by purchasing our merch HERE.
