RK Taylor

RK Taylor is earning his MFA in Pittsburgh. Taylor is a roving editor for The Fourth River, and through Chatham University’s Words Without Walls Program, he teaches at the Allegheny County Jail.

He has been published in The Metaworker and Scribble, and his debut story has been nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.

He has an unparalleled passion for white boards.

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► RK's microchap & selected poems are available below. Download the single-page microchap by clicking the title.

Origami Microchap

retrospective jealousy,
and other poems

Click on above title to download PDF microchap.

rk taylor CVR Website Retrospective

Cover Design by Julia Eldred

Every microchap

may be downloaded

for free

from this website.

(Set printer for landscape)

what i wish i didn’t forget

your loyalty. that you
are cultivating virtue. that you try
to be good, try to avoid
guilt. that you try
to question.

i forget to see
me, as you do.
i forget you are
in love. that i deserve
love. that ive earned it.
that I continue to earn it
each day.

i forget you
are happy
-ish. that we’re not
in a constant crisis. that you’re
not my mom,

that im
not abusive

●

retrospective jealousy

your loyalty gleams
like the reflection of

the cd leftover, left
overturned and abandoned

on your seat
in my car.

your devotion transcends
the curbs of my imagination:

letters writen in lofty prose
shaming my scribbled poems.

your proof is effusive;
as I unearth understanding,

my effacement proves elusive.
your evidence abounds,

but i neglect the facts,
preoccupied with the notion

that im competing with memories
of others that bear the scars

of your lips and
those visions envisaged

before you loved me

●

Poets