Not a Johnny Cash Song | Kathryn Kulpa

If you were the final girl and I were the serial killer I’d crouch behind the bushes in your mid-century suburban backyard for hours and never get a leg cramp. I’d call the house where you were babysitting, ask about the children in a whispery voice. I’d crinkle dry leaves in my hand. I’d take bare branches and rake them across the window like bony fingers, because sometimes the wind won’t cooperate. Sometimes you have to make your own opportunity. 

If you were the final girl and I were the serial killer I’d hunt you down, but there would be love in it. I’d wear my mask prouder, I’d hold my knife higher, if you were my final girl. Something would be there between us, an unspoken respect. We would be a teeter-totter, a fulcrum, two binary stars in endless orbit. If you were the final girl and I were the serial killer, I would shadow your life like a cumulus cloud. I would know you better than you know yourself. I would be your memory. 

I would remember what you said to Mr. DeSocio when you tried out for Rizzo in the school play but got assigned Sandy anyway. I’d remember that you liked popsicles, but only the grape ones. Your lips stained purple after, like you’d been drinking blood. I’d remember the way the sun flamed your hair the day you stood in the middle of Old Salt Pond Road and stopped traffic so a turtle could cross, but you wouldn’t remember me, in the back seat of my parents’ car, and how I wanted to run out and help you, how I wanted to be as brave as you, as good as you, but my parents said it was too dangerous, and the child locks were on. I would remember what you were wearing when your father came back to the house with a U-Haul, how he told you We’ll still be a family, how you stood there in your yellow denim shorts and braided ankle bracelet and watched him drive away, watched him sever your heart without a knife. 

If you were the final girl and I were the serial killer I’d always want you and never have you. The best I could hope for would be to haunt your dreams. You’ll be lying there in your bed, sweat-chilled, heart-hammering, dreaming of me. You won’t know this but I’ll be dreaming of you too. 

If you were the final girl and I were the serial killer, they’d lock me away for years and years, but still I’d find my way home, some dark October night. I’d be shot, I’d be bludgeoned, I’d be stabbed, but still I’d rise, rise, rise. Still I’d come back for you. 

Kathryn Kulpa has words in Five South, Milk Candy Review, Unbroken Journal, and Wigleaf.