Sometimes You Have to Save Yourself More Than Once, Kim Malinowski Discusses Her Book, Buffy's House of Mirrors.
Written by Kim Malinowski, Illustrated by Gabby Gilliam
Hi Everyone. Important Announcement: My old email address is defunct. My new email is TreshaFayeHaefner@gmail.com. If you’ve been waiting on a response from me, please send me a message at my new address.
Sometimes You Have to Save Yourself More Than Once: Kim Malinowski Discusses Buffy’s House of Mirrors
Register for This Reading and Open Mic Here.
Summary
In this interview I talk with Kim Malinowski about her latest collection of poems Buffy’s House of Mirrors. Kim tells me how the book started as a response to the musical episode of the hit T.V. show Buffy and then became an entire collection. The book was more than homage to the character of Buffy, and was more of a way for the speaker of the poem to address the demon of her own eating disorder, how she felt about her body (hence, mirrors), and how she could slay demons, dance with them, and save herself… depending on how you look at it.
This book promises a fun but also meaningful read for anyone who is a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or anyone who wants to know how to use pop culture to explore the personal.
Poems
"Give me something to sing about"
I don’t have background dancers
not in sync with any damn beat.
No dizzying snare or slam of guitar rift
just splintered stake in my heart
and the open space you left on repeat.
No demon winding out my secrets with
snazzy syncopation and pizazz
no rewinding episodes to explain
incomplete character arcs about to explode
to every damn character’s demise.
All that sappy hope, the kumbayayas,
all my wounds untreated
none stitched up tight.
Can’t even riff myself into intoxicating burn.
Spike doesn’t stop my frenetic dance to the death and his eyes don’t meet mine and croon
living will ease the pain, the suffering
is part of life. A necessary part, sure asshole.
And no matter how hot he is—
Buffy has dibs, and I have to perform my own triage before the next take. Extract the stake that didn’t miss, just shattered, because the slayer didn’t equip
himself for battle-hardened hearts.
So now with tweezer and needle, a shot of Writer’s Tears, I tend to the damage. Each splinter, each molecule, because every vampire knows atomic and molecular structure is the difference between a clean wound and one that festers for centuries.
I hear the deep timber of my slayer’s voice
shards zing out into ink
cacophony of treble clef and the hope for demon duet with background accompaniment.
I’d take a viola and a trombone or two
in some waltz to demise under a Capricorn
sky and a pilgrimage past pain.
Spike and Buffy could have their fling.
I could have whatever tatters remain of my not
fling that lasts centuries or seconds.
And his eyes are cold and soft and rigid and steel my mouth prepares to sing to the demon’s spell
maybe this time, I could get a dance number.
He smiles, a not Spike smile,
and I sigh a not Buffy sigh.
No one can tell us how to live being us.
My heart stops, waiting for the next stake.
I Sing into Dark Alleys
"My friends can’t face—"
me.
How can one protect themselves
when my lightning strikes?
When I sizzle into their basements
and flounce into their lives
clumsily fierce,
they find shadow
scorched earth,
I am alone in shame.
Cold.
Spike may be trilling that he loves me some dark way but cannot hold my lightning in his palm cannot sway chest to electricity
leaves me hollow
alone at threat of ice.
Just spam
telemarketers
and the demon calls to me
with his finger
and in trance, I follow.
Promise with jazz hands no more pet hair, no more broken dishes,
no more hollow looks.
I overwhelm even my father into silence,
doesn’t speak when I enter,
runs from the room.
Lightning does that. Splits trees.
Splits families.
Burns.
The demon tap dances as Spike yells
“No, first I’ll kill her—then I’ll save her!”
and I wait
will my friends get to me in time
or will I dance until I burn?
References
Lewis Buzbee , “Sunday, Tarzan in the Hammock”
Joan Kwon Glass, “Cafe Atlantique”