my ( $foo, $bar, $foo2 ) = qw/foo bar foo2/;
my $array_of_key_value_pairs =
[
    item1 => $foo,
    item2 => $bar,
    item1 => $foo2,
];
print Dumper $array_of_key_value_pairs;

##</code><code>##

$VAR1 = [
          'item1',
          'foo',
          'item2',
          'bar',
          'item1',
          'foo2'
        ];