To a Child
Every time you leave, or I am leaving you, or stepping onto a plane or into a car, – basically every time we part, I wish the last words you hear from me to be: “I love you”. Because maybe one day they will be the last words you will hear from me and I want you to know how well you were loved, by me.
From a Mother
“You don’t need ice-cream to make an awesome Sunday…”
© Kait King, 2016
My Mum and Dad in Queen St, Auckland 1956
I walk down the aisle
my eyes passing over cards
words springing out
about Mum going
the whole nine yards
And I stop to read a few
The words just seem
insipid
when I think of you,
Mum
A journey into the intrepid
Four babies later
and over 60 years married
Through wars, tonsillitis,
tears and love you tarried
Now here I am
a mother too
And these words I say: “I love you”
Have also come
from my son’s mouth
and heart
But to say them to you
doesn’t even begin to start
to express what a fantastic Mum you’ve been
You’ve done a good job,
I’m a good human being
So I tell you you’re an amazing Mum
and people are proud of the job you’ve done!© Kait King, 2015
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
Domestic violence
that Evil Beast
Thriving on hurt
when all you want
is Peace
Insecure person
always comparing in loss
Punching out your feeble Anger
But your Family pays the cost
Vulnerable? Were you
beaten yourself?
Shouldn’t you know better
than to put them through
this Hell?
Poor little person…
Is that what you want
them to think?
So here you stand at
a Crossroad
You can change all of this
in a Blink
Kait King 2017
Gingerly I type the words, wondering if I may be the only person who thinks like this. god’s daughter is turning out to be more appalling than horrific, more repulsive than disgusting. I can feel her like black tar in my mind. She calls me to write her out – to layer her like a black wedding cake, all the details – the spiders, the webs, the cockroaches, the mould and dusty aura of her mind. The corners of her life are all in shadow, a shadow I have to be brave enough to step into and feel the darkness that is god’s daughter. She wants to be created but she doesn’t want me – I am nothing to her, just like everyone else.
And she is nothing like me…
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