I knew I loved this family
from the very start
It felt like I’d always been there
and we’d never been apart
With our delicious little secrets
and our family photo art
Boisterous family dinners
and cheeky, jeering remarks
Mum’s delicious orange chicken and
her cinnamon apple tart
I knew I loved this family
from the very start
© Kait King, 2016
deciphering life
Junkie Corner and Gangster Avenue
Who’s hanging where
and why are they hanging here?
Are they sucking up the light?
Or just too noisy in the night?
Have the neighbors had enough
Are the gangs a tad too tough?
Do they scare you with their masks
and their everyday drug tasks?
Standing on a corner street
a clusterfuck of hopeless
listening to some grind beat
you just need to smoke, pop, toke this
there is no other option
but for crap minimum wage
Nothing there that stops them
And lucky to reach old age
© Kait King, 2015
I remember you Dad
I remember being only
knee-high to a grasshopper
and you would twirl me around
you let me stand on your feet
and danced with me
while I clutched at your
chino trousers or
the creases on your business suit
You never minded
we always danced
I remember pouring your drink
two fingers of Glen Morangie
two fingers being my index and little
but not really
I mixed that whiskey with two blocks of ice
and a dash of chilled water
I remember how you would savour it
in the South African sunlight
at the end of your day
I remember the love of words and animals
you gifted to us all
your funniness
and sense of justice
I remember you telling me
to eat my crusts
so that I would grow hair on my chest
and I did – eat them, not grow hairs on my chest…
I remember you used to type
business letters on my belly
and I was an old typewriter with a runner
and a “ding!”
which tickled the hell out of me
“Dear sir” you would type
I’m shrieking with delight
And the photo’s that I have
I remember you Dad
© Kait King, 2015
With love and dedication to my incredible father – the walking Encyclopaedia, the uncapped academic – I miss you, we all do xxx
Somewhere Else…
Sometimes I
feel like
my Soul is
desperately
trying to
escape…
Tap
Tap
Tapping
at the top
of my skull
“There’s
somewhere
else I’m
supposed to
be
Let me
out!
Set
me
free!”
© Kait King, 2018
02/04/2018
A Bad Combination
That’s a bad combination
A Lover who’s a Man
It doesn’t matter, you see
’cause he’ll take it if it’s free
Yeah…that’s a bad combination
a Lover who’s a Man
© Kait King, 2015
Just to Be
Just to be painless
I need to be numb
Just to be painless
I must be made dumb
I can’t connect
but just lie in a bed
Life laughs
at my bet
Just to be painless
I can’t be me
Just to be painless
I can’t be free
Just to be painless
and live a life
I wanted to live
The purpose
that would give
Just to be painless
© Kait King, 2016
Feeling like the Titanic
She’s listing
dangerously –
hair unwashed
no make-up on,
even the Captain
abandoned her
uninteresting,
over-weight and
needy
Stuck in the
iceberg solid
icy
cold
unwanted connection –
The dark will soon
be upon the wreck
alone
lonely
lost
© Kait King, 2016
The Hidden Object Blame
Is there really a light
at the end of some tunnel?
Have I lost the map
Did I throw it away
dirty and crumpled?
Have I lost my way
taken a wrong turn
can’t see the light
from the candles burned?
Is it that I’m blind
even though I enjoy vision
For looking I can’t see
and so much
remains hidden
© Kait King, 2015
Choose to Lose
Oh what to do
when someone
cheats on you
Oh what to say
that even though –
you want them to stay
And how do you choose
how you want to lose –
you know he knows
he’s won –
and he’s already started
and nowhere near
done
© Kait King, 2016
Being the Ogre
You promise you’ll be home tonight
to kiss the kids and hold me tight
You tell me it won’t be the same
until it happens once again
You say I am the only one
and what’s been done can’t be undone
I stay quietly alone all through the day
watching our kids grow and play
and when the door opens later at night
they think you’re home, that they are all right
But bedtime comes and they can’t wait up
I am the ogre who’s taken their pup
Little do they know you don’t give a damn
Fathers’ like you shouldn’t be called men
© Kait King, 2015
Harlequinesque
I promise you it’s true
a clean slate
a new year
I can do this if I want to
with a clean break
not get stuck here
I really have turned a page
a corner
to face this fear
I truly have changed
grown stronger
happier longer but
still hiding a tear
© Kait King, 2015
I Just Wanted
I just wanted
to be happy
As baffling as
that may seem
I just wanted to
spread Kindness
Remove the idea
of being mean
I just wanted
to have Peace
As impossible as
that seems
but it’s ok, they say,
to always have dreams
There is no need to
“stand your ground”
It isn’t yours, for a start
It will still be here
When we’re not around
It’s much better to leave
a piece of your Heart
© Kait King, 2016
Only Sometimes…
Sometimes I pull my jersey up over my head
or just want to stay curled up in my too big bed
I just want and wish everything to go away
I feel numb, time is timeless and I don’t know what to say
Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m only ten
and I’m playing hide ‘n’ seek again
Sometimes I want to curl into a ball
and say good bye to it all
Sometimes I don’t know if I have the energy to breathe
let alone anything else life has up it’s sleeve
Sometimes I wonder what a life would be like
if I could be set free without string and fly like a kite
Sometimes I doubt what lies in front of me
I try not too look to far ahead as I might not like what I see
© Kait King, 2015
The Ultimate Design
My Joy
My joy
your face
My life
misplaced
My breath
filling space
Alive,
still
© Kait King, 2015
Foot in mouth disease
I loved university. I loved being up to my eyeballs in something I was fascinated with. The challenges and deadlines were all bonuses on top of the actual subject and I rose to greet each one. Anyway that’s by the by, so I’m in the lecture theater and the lecture is about to end. I know I’m getting a phone call very shortly so I excuse myself to go outside to wait for the call.
I get outside and there’s a kid doubled over, sitting pretty much folded over on the side bench. I wander to the bench, my phone out, texting and looking up as I walk. And I sit down on his right side. He shuffles over a little to make room. He is not moving much and my curiosity gets the better of me and I surreptitiously glance sideways at him. Yep, he is totally bent in half, but I do see his phone in his hand and he’s got his left hand side of his face plastered to his phone. Not the left hand side as in, his ear and talking, I mean like with his eye and not talking. Possibly taking a picture of his eye? Or the pupil of his eye? So without thinking for another second I pipe up with “I think you need glasses by the looks of things!” and chuckled a little, breaking the ice and everything. And this is my problem – my brain doesn’t engage with my mouth or vice versa – they work independently (against me!) so this is where I have ended up with this Foot in Mouth Disease – I’m a a frequent flyer.
Well, this kid looks up at me and one eye is covered with that cloud, the cloud that means that they can’t see much of anything out of that eye and the other one is scarred too.
He says, “It’s the only way I can see my texts – glasses won’t help…” I’m sitting there like an idiot. But I did what I usually do and chose not to ignore the elephant.
“So what happened to your eyes?” I asked.
He looked up from his phone again – well, as best as he could, and explained that he had been walking down Queen Street and it was winter. A super stormy day, and Queen Street can become like a wind tunnel on days like that. He had a jacket on that zipped up and as he grappled in the wind with it, the zip sliced across his eye, blinding him totally in his right eye and severely impinging on his sight in his left.
“I’m so sorry dude – really impressed you’re at university…I didn’t mean to be rude by the way….” I trailed off. He smiled, “It’s OK,” he says to me, ” at least you didn’t just walk away – that’s the worst. Everyone knows something’s up with my fricken vision. Lots of people don’t know what to do when they’re confronted with something unexpected…”
We were silent for a split second.
“I’m sorry this happened to you…. but I see in spite of a universal fuck-up in your life, you’re still here, still givin’ it all that!” he laughed at me and I laughed too.
“Often people so let the wrong things define who they are, or the worst things. The fact that you rise above this defines who you are.” He looked at me with a serious frown, somewhat created due to his lack of vision.
“Thank you for that, I needed to hear that right now…” he said.
I didn’t know his name but I did know much more about him than just some letters to identify him to his friends, family, fellow students and work colleagues. Not only that, but I found out even more about myself, or maybe about people. We all share commonalities – common likes, enemies, feelings, injustices etc. We all share bonds and those deeper threads of what make us who we are are far more interesting and important than your name, your clothes, your home, car, bank account…we truly are here to fill our souls and not our wallets. I take my soul with me when I go – I will leave my earthly belongings behind.
© Kait King, 2015
Thought # 1
If you’re very rarely or never told “No” or don’t have to wait or work for anything, will it be a harder struggle to get on in the World? (This is based on most normal and reasonable of situations – single or separate parenting included and of course, on a continuum).
In the “Real World” no one else treats you the same way as your parents do. No one else cares the same way for you as your parents do. No one else in the World will give you the same leeway. Will one lack a certain resilience because one can’t deal with a No, or don’t understand why it’s a No?
Your Ego takes a beating, hearing all those ‘yeses’ and how wonderful you are at everything and then a No would just take the wind right out of your sails, it’s a shock. Is it about that resilience? Even against adversity and with all the curve balls life throws you, wouldn’t it be better to be able to face that adversity? I am not talking about being a nagging No Hound about everything – but I do think we need to prepare our children for “out there”! Just tell them the truth, make them stand for something, let them know what their strengths and weaknesses are and let them embrace them all and use them to their best advantage in this crazy Life.
If it is about resilience then we must give our children that strength and fight. They need these things to be able to survive – and not just survive but to live well.
Kait King 2017