Kimberly Wolf
a Poem
Guided Tour
Waymark Literary Magazine, Issue 8, Spring 2026
Here is where the press gathered. Note the wear on the carpet,
blemishes
you wouldn’t have even noticed if you had been there—
the sheer mass of people interrogating the room.
And here is the podium where he addressed them,
the microphone
still reeks
of his breath.
And here is the pen he used
to sign away the lives of children.
Yes, children.
And here is where he received important phone calls
from split-tongued friends
who lived across the boiling sea.
And here is the rose garden his wife oversaw,
bred for their thorns
and the delicate way they rot.
And here is his favorite chair,
scorched during the riots.
And just in front of it is where they lined up to kiss his feet.
Yes, all of them.
Yes, even the parents.
a Memory
Tell me about your favorite pair of shoes:
My favorite pair of shoes are my Birkenstocks sandals. A few years ago, I had this idea to stand outside my bedroom window (which was a pretty high window) while I knew my partner was in our bedroom and try to jump up so that he could see my head outside the window. I thought this was a hilarious idea. However, I underestimated just how high the window was, and just how much of my head he would be able to see (he didn’t know I was doing this), and the result was I jumped up and down on the concrete sidewalk for about ten to fifteen minutes before I gave up. The next day, my right foot was killing me, and it didn’t stop. I went to my doctor and she told me that I have plantar fasciitis. The only time my foot doesn’t hurt is if I am wearing these Birkenstocks, but they (and the injury itself) remind me that I’m willing to be a fool for love.
Tell me about your favorite car:
I love my shitty Nissan Versa Hatchback. This baby has over 200,000 miles on it and I’m trying to make it 300,000. It’s so old that it won’t connect to the Bluetooth on my phone, so I have to listen to music either on my phone speaker or a portable speaker when I’m driving. I have driven this car quite literally all over the country. When my partner and I were long distance, I would make a two day drive from Deer Park to DC. I’d stop at a Love’s gas station in Chattanooga, TN and sleep the most uncomfortable sleep in my life in the backseat. The feeling of leaving home, where it’s flat and swampy and surrounded by chemical plants, going to sleep in my car in a gas station parking lot to wake up to the sunrise on rolling hills was a feeling I’ll remember forever. I drove my daughter and sister in this car from Houston all the way to New York, stopping in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the way. I think heaven would be me in my car driving somewhere I’ve never seen before, blasting music (as loud as possible on my phone speaker), hand out the window, waving.
Tell me about Deer Park. What was it like growing up? What is it like now? What has changed and what has stayed the same?
Technically, I lived one town over in Pasadena as a kid, but most of my friends lived in Deer Park and most of my teen years were spent here. Growing up, I was really religious and attended a church in Deer Park. It has never been a glamorous place to live. It’s an industrial town surrounded by chemical plants. Growing up in the church, I felt held by my community, but once I left the church at 18 I realized that that love was very conditional. However, something that is magical about being a kid in a place like this is you learn to romanticize things that most people would find disgusting, or terrible. It’s harder to romanticize it now, and I don’t really want to anymore. But there was a time when I loved walking down medians with no sidewalks with my best friend, getting coffee at 6 am with local firefighters and having them teach me a few things about how my car works. I used to really want to get away from here, and sometimes I still do, but I’ve learned to appreciate this place for what it is.
Which parts of Deer Park feel like they are just for you? Do you have a favorite beach, mall, park, mom & pop shop?
There’s this sno-cone place called Tropical Chill that has been around since I was like four. It’s always been cash only, and it’s where I went when I needed to cool off. It was right across the street from my old church, and sometimes my best friend and I would skip Sunday school to go get a sno-cone. I take my kids there now and it’s nice to sit with them in a place that always felt like a little escape for me as a kid.
Which sounds, scents, and textures are specific to home for you? How do these show up in your writing?
The smell of a chemical burn-off, trains rattling on their way to the plants, sunscreen-sweat and chlorine smell at the public pool in the Summer.
In my poetry, a lot of imagery from the plants shows up. Also, a lot of weather-related things have been coming up lately: heat waves, hurricanes, etc.
Texas is one of the biggest states in the U.S. How would you describe its personality and its landscape? How is central Texas different from Deer Park?
Having lived in both the Houston area and Central Texas, I have really noticed how much variety Texas has to offer. There is quite literally something for everyone here. Here in Deer Park, I’m pretty close to Houston, so I’ve gotten used to life in a big city. In Central Texas, I mainly lived in small rural towns, a totally different world. I lived in Austin for a year, and even that was SO different from Houston. The people, the food, everything. I’ve lived in Texas my whole life and only made it out to Big Bend National Park a few years ago. The landscape was unlike anything I’ve seen in Texas, and another reminder at just how much variety there is here.
What are some of the advantages or challenges of being a family in 2026? How is Deer Park the same or different for your partner and your kids than it was for you when you were growing up?
Being a parent here is so much different than being a kid here. Growing up, I was pretty sheltered and definitely didn’t know much about how the world worked outside of my hometown. Now, I’m here with my partner and kids, and it’s a totally different kind of life. My partner is originally from Long Island, so he had a lot of culture shock moving here, but it’s nice to be able to parent my kids in a more progressive way than I was raised. While there are a lot of things I don’t love about living here, I do love being a safe person for my kids to talk to, and I love to see the wisdom and empathy they bring to their friendships. My kids have been to more states now than I had when I was their age, so it’s been nice to show them that there is a life outside the town they grow up in.
What are some ways that you make room for your children’s memories? What of theirs have you archived?
I have a whole box of arts and crafts projects they’ve done throughout elementary school. This is weird, but I also carry their baby teeth around in my wallet. I love seeing them and remembering when they were so little, they’ve grown so fast!
How does creativity show up in your daily life? What are some crafts and hobbies you are proud of that you want more people to notice?
I am really proud of the way I’ve organized what I call the “library room” in my house. It’s supposed to just be a dining room, and our table is in there, but there are also four full sized bookshelves, a nice reading chair and table, and our record player. It’s all in front of this big window that lets the morning light in beautifully. I like curating my space to be what I need to get into the headspace of writing.
How do you write a poem? How do you enter it, how do you title it, when do you know when it is finished?
When I first started writing poems, it felt like they would just appear to me fully fleshed out. I would have an idea, write it all down, and submit it. I felt like I had a magic power back then, but once I started attending workshops, I saw how much disservice I was doing to my poems by not editing. Now, it takes me a lot longer to write a poem. Sometimes it starts from one line, and I construct a poem around that line. Sometimes it’s just a feeling that takes a few weeks to come together. I keep a notebook of “scraps”, just little things I see or lines that pop into my head that I write down to come back to later. The title is the hardest part for me, always! It takes me a bit to figure titles out. As far as when a poem is finished, I think it’s finished when there is nothing left to edit. When I read it out loud and every line sings.
Are there any themes or words you are always returning to? Which themes or words do you actively avoid?
Some themes I keep returning to are silence and the unsaid. I don’t think there are any themes that I actively avoid, but I’m sure others could point some out for me!
One of the things we have connected on previously is our relationship with alcohol and sobriety. Can you talk a bit about that trajectory in relation to your writing and creativity?
Oh wow, absolutely. I started drinking heavily around the time I turned 19. Prior to that, I had really loved writing shitty little teenage poems in high school. Nothing to get published, but things that I considered fun and worthwhile when I was doing them. When I started drinking, everything was stunted. Writing became something I only did if I was wasted, but not too wasted to not be able to think, so not often! The things I did write during that time were dark, and definitely weren’t cohesive. I quit drinking in 2018, and about a year later I started writing poems with the goal of having them published. Since then, I’ve had over 20 individual publications, had a chapbook published, and won scholarships to attend the Wildacres Writing Workshop two years in a row. When I drank, I would still write, but now that I’m sober, I’m PROUD to write. Getting better every day.
Another thing we have connected on is being a parent. How does being a parent affect how you navigate writing, work, and an online presence?
I had my first kid when I was 21, and my second when I was 26. During this time I struggled with my sobriety, and didn’t make any time for creativity. Now that I’m sober, I have had to learn how to balance being a parent and being a poet while raw dogging reality without any mind altering substances! Routine is important for me. If I don’t have a schedule, I feel like I’m lost at sea. What that looks like is making a down to the hour daily schedule where I spend x amount of time writing, x amount of time studying (I’m a full time student), x amount of time doing things that are just fun (reading, video games, tv), and my evenings are open to family time.
What generation do you consider yourself a part of? What generalizations about your generation do you accept and which ones feel stereotypical?
I’m a millennial! It’s funny to me to hear my kids use “millennial” as an almost derogatory term, but at the same time, how many times have I heard millennials use “boomer” in the same way? I can’t even count lol! I tend to just not even really think about generational rivalries, and sometimes the little digs at millennials are funny! Especially the concept of the “millennial pause”, that’s so real. Having a 15 year old will definitely give you thick skin, they notice EVERYTHING and will call you out on it! I think my number one thought process when it comes to teenagers like my kid making fun of millennials is that I’m an adult and refuse to let a teenager hurt my feelings lol!!
How do you relate to others in your generation? What struggles seem to affect a whole generation versus you as an individual?
It is hard for me to relate to people my age. A lot of that has to do with having kids at a young age. Since I had my kids while I was really unwell, I simultaneously HAD to grow up faster than the people I partied with, which was isolating, yet also was condemned for still being a traumatized kid with an alcohol addiction BECAUSE I had a kid. So in some ways it made me mature faster than many around me, but the areas where I didn’t progress (such as drinking) were seen as way worse than others around me who were also addicts because I was a mom. Now that I’m sober, the biggest issue I struggle with is trying to understand people who go through things that truly don’t seem like a big deal to me. After you go through some really major, life altering things at a young age, other people’s problems can become unrelatable. I find myself frustrated when people my age are still making self-destructive or harmful decisions and can get trapped in the thought of “well, if I could do it, why can’t they?” BUT I am working on understanding that everyone has a different capacity for pain. The fact that mine is high isn’t something to celebrate or be proud of.
How would you compare your generation to your parents’ or your children’s?
I think my generation is much more prone to seeking help vs. my parent’s generation seeing asking for help as some kind of moral failure. That is something that I’m glad is changing. My kid’s generation, at least from the examples I see from my children and their friends, are so much more accepting of people’s differences. Last night, we watched an old episode of The Amazing Race with my 10 year old son, and he was SHOCKED by all of the derogatory and bigoted comments made by some contestants about other’s appearances. He was like, “Is this really what was normal back then?”
Describe a moment from growing up in Texas that felt like it changed your whole generation.
9/11, absolutely. I think that’s the same for a lot of people, no matter where they’re from. I will always remember being in 6th grade choir and a teacher wheeling a tv in and seeing the 2nd tower get hit and fall. After that, it felt like the world got a lot meaner. Friends of mine who weren’t white Christians were bullied. It was the first time in my life I remember seeing examples of racism happen in front of me, and it was when I started questioning my religion and the way I was being raised. I think a lot of people also started confronting these things during that time.
What is your relationship with the web like? When did you hop on? How did it start and how is it going? What do you love about it? What do you hate about it?
We got a computer when I was in middle school, and Neopets was my jam. Oh my god, I loved Neopets. It was this website where you “raised” this little creature and could but it food and take it to the vet if it got sick. There were also message boards on Neopets, and I think my first foray into creative writing was on the vampire RPG message boards where I was roleplaying as a sexy blonde vampire girl who didn’t want to be evil but had to have human blood to live, the DRAMA!! I love the way the internet connects people who otherwise would have NEVER crossed paths. I actually met my partner of 8 years on Tumblr, which is maybe one of the most millennial things ever. That being said, what the internet has become is something I don’t love anymore. It’s less about connecting and more about selling something. I don’t want to be addicted to watching ads all day.
How has technology influenced or shaped your creative projects? How do you feel about references to digital life in poetry?
I find references to tech, or more specifically, the act of being online show up more and more in my poetry. It’s something that I think about a lot, the relationship most people have to the internet being this all consuming thing that dictates how they behave and show up in their relationships. The weirdest thing for me is when I’m hanging out with someone and they are on their phone half the time, scrolling through various apps.
SHOUT OUTS
Kelly White Arnold is an incredible poet who just put out her debut chapbook with Finishing LIne Press, you can get it here: 
What would you write in a letter to the Deer Park of your childhood? What would you write to the Deer Park of the future?
Deer Park long gone, You were good for teaching me that something ugly can mean something, even if what it means isn’t kind. Thank you for everything.
Deer Park that’s yet to come, Be good to the kids, support the arts, clean up your act.