You’ve broken my heart
no,
you’ve ripped it apart
and just left it
over there
shoving it in my face
that you don’t care
no,
that you never did
as a woman
a man
or a kid
no….
you never did
© Kait King, 2015
You’ve broken my heart
no,
you’ve ripped it apart
and just left it
over there
shoving it in my face
that you don’t care
no,
that you never did
as a woman
a man
or a kid
no….
you never did
© Kait King, 2015

I’m torn
my soul says
fly, my love
as high as you can
My heart begs
you to stay
as close as you can
to me
I’m torn
my mind says
you must grow
you must be
I let you go
I let you be
I let you be free
© Kait King, 2016

My Dad and Me
It was so sad
to watch you fade
your mind
as sharp as a knife
It was so hard
to say goodbye
To such a treasured life
It made me smile
to think on you a while
and on how you loved
your wife
Your children given
all you had
you gave
a treasured life
It seems that you
are still here
although you can’t
be seen
I often talk to you
And not just
in my dreams
I hope I told you
I loved you enough
I hope you know
how much I cared
And I know
one day,
I’ll see you again
Somewhere over there…
© Kait King, 2015

You never quite
got to be here
You never quite
got to breathe in air
I never quite
got to touch
your face
take you home
show you
your place
I never quite
got to watch you grow
I never quite
got to get to know
you,
your love
I never quitegot to hold
your tiny hand
or do anything elsethat I had planned
I’ll never quitehear you say
“Mum, you were right!”
Or get to readbedtime stories
at night
You’ll never quitemiss me
when I am not there
Sadly, our lives,this time,
we’ll not share…
© Kait King, 2015
I breathe feelings
I dance emotions
and coddle dreams
I rap time
if it’s mine
and wander the roads
of forever
I trickle into hearts
sometimes I’m poured
sometimes it’s voracious
sometimes
bored
The mystical flow
of the words that glow
in the firelight
faces wait
breath held in
anticipation
waiting on
the words of love
so soft
so real
so true
I feel them
Can you feel them too?
© Kait King, 2015

I didn’t want to
lay back
in the director’s
chair
I didn’t want to
take off my clothes
to help me get “up there”
I didn’t want to be
just bouncy breasts
on TV
I didn’t want my body
out there
for all to see
So I didn’t take
the money
I didn’t get
the job
not for any other reason
than I wouldn’t
suck his knob
© Kait King, 2015

With such confusion
I’m walking through a jungle
of desert
Holding
like a dam of emotion
my feelings –
when really I want to be
the river
rushing to meet and make
an ocean of you
Falling so crashingly in love
will it be a bad landing?
I draw our names
in the sand
and you carve your place
in my heart
© Kait King, 2015

Somehow you get through – it’s not even that you learn to live with these things – they stay in our lives forever as part of who we are. In fact these are the things that make us who we are. They used to say this kind of suffering was character building. That may or may not be so, for me, it allows great reflection and understanding of my capacity to love and give love and in turn what it means to lose that.
One of the annoying things friends and family expect, is for you to “get over it” after a certain amount of time – whatever that time is. But there is nothing to get over. You can’t just imagine it’s behind you – things are not behind us, they are all a part of us. We carry them with the sum of ourselves. Maybe by putting things behind us we let our guard down, we love too easily again, we get hurt so much more because of that. Taking the good and the bad experiences is what makes you the person you are. Are you a fighter? Do you run away? Are you persistent? Do you give up? Whatever you do, you have to live with it – you don’t learn to live with it – there is no manual. You have no choice, choice has been removed from this section of your life and a loss of some kind has left a crater and a giant rock in the same place. Luckily the giant rock plugs up a lot of the feelings for a while – this is often known as shock. Eventually the putridness of your trapped feelings in this hole in your heart starts building up a mass of toxic gasses which must be expelled. This build up, over any period of time (as long as it takes you), causes a massive explosion. The giant rock is blasted apart from the hole in your heart. The tiny splinters of angst, hurt, devotion, honor,disbelief, love and any other betrayed related feeling you can imagine, is dug deeply into your heart and mind. Each little splinter of that pain has barbs of doubt, guilt and confusion holding them in place in your heart. And we can’t let go or it can’t let go of us or we don’t give ourselves permission to keep moving forward even though we are cemented in that time of tragedy and know that’s impossible, isn’t it?
The hard part is learning to navigate around these losses, grievances and betrayals, eventually like a powerful river we keep flowing around these rocks of hurt that seem like they will never shift or move. But they do erode – the erosion is so subtle and slow we don’t even notice and so it is, I believe, with tragedy, loss and grief; be that for a living being or a relationship of any kind. Loss leaves a big hole and a giant rock that you drag around with you all the time. Afterwards we question everything said and done, what could have been different, the “if only’s” and the “what if’s” with hopeless, empty dreams. Nothing can be changed. It is what it is, but I know I fight against this too, even though I understand the futility of the fight!
I think only in time will I manage to erode down that rock of loss, will I be able to take the sharp edges off and flow a little easier around the things put in my way that I have no way of changing. Perhaps time won’t heal the wounds, but perhaps time allows my river of life to smooth the edges of hurt. Perhaps it lets me build up strength so that I can push past that hurt easier, every time I have to go past that hurt again. Because it doesn’t go away….

A lisp
a whispered hiss
With a gristle hustle
and a deathly shuffle
you wind your way
back home
There’s a twist
and a freakish glow
in a freak show
the decaying beat
of a drum
hiss
a whispered kiss
of a driveling fool
your hunting days
are done
this
flayed lantern skins
bones used as tools
a soup bowl
not a soup bowl
but
a human skull
© Kait King, 2015

Time
leapt away
from me…
It left me
behind,
behind some
enemy line…
Time
jumped
like a rabbit
down a dark hole…
skittishly aware
of the scar
on my Soul
© Kait King, 2016
It’s 22 past 2
What am I here for?
And can’t I leave?
But do you really want to?
I have to go
Are you clear in the sight of all things?
I see nothing
I feel him
I need to –
No
I have to go!
I don’t want to be deserted
Well I want to be the deserter –
It won’t hurt so much
© Kait King, 2016

I wonder what my reaction
would be
if I came home and had
to see
you with someone that was
not me?
Would I stay or
would I flee?
The four stages
of shock
when you find someone else
locked
on the end of your man’s
cock
and you need a loaded
Glock
So do you stand quietly
by the door
do you want to
watch some more
or
do you want to scream at her
she’s a whore
or collapse on
the floor or
walk out?
Do you do it all
real calmly
like you don’t really
want it to be
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Would you please explain to me?”(tearfully)
That would be nice
but it’s not me
This is more
my reality
“I’m gonna kill the both of you for free!”
“How could you do this to me?” (insanely)
But a gun wouldn’t leave me
in doubt…
© Kait King, 2015
Scribble me
into your life
Pen me
into your mind
Feel me
in tactile braille
So I can read you
if I’m blind
Then, touch me with
a purity – like
a crisp white paper sheet
Write me
into a love story
Our blending ink –
A story complete
© Kait King, 2016
Please don’t pick me
not again
I’m terrified
so frightened I can’t
breathe
It hurts and I can’t
see
through the tears
I don’t know
I’m crying
Universe,
Please stop me
now
before it’s too late
and time
steals you away
from me
too brief
too painful
this I can’t do
Please,
Please Universe
don’t pick me
© Kait King, 2015

When we are
touching skin
when you have
let me in
With a dream-like
essence
I feel your
presence
the heat from
your skin
when you let me in
I know there
are no lies
I can see it
in your blue eyes
I can feel it
from your mouth
I can hear it in
your blazing skin
when you let me in
the goose bumps on
your flesh
and our kiss
can only express
we are so lost
it must be a sin
but only when
you let me in
© Kait King, 2015

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

I’ve often wondered why just about everything we discuss has to be blah blah blah OR blah blah blah… Why can’t it be both? Why is it not possible that these things are symbiotic? Co-morbid? Dual catalysts? I listen to people discuss the big question of how we got here. The options, in this conversation, may I be so polite, are:
Okay, so everybody’s got a point and nobody has the answer so there is some validity of possibility in each perspective. Especially if you consider the human to be made up of physical, mental and spiritual capacities and needs, which I do. And in this debate there is even more than two sides to contemplate. So each individual has solid, understandable reasons – well within reason, and are glued to the ground on what those reasons are and why. The discussion becomes what people like to call “heated”. I, totally unlike my robust debatable self, still did not get involved. I could hear the rising of offensiveness from each party as the others poo-poo’ed each others perspectives and theories. It wasn’t going to end well, nobody likes to be poo-poo’ed.
After the hoo-ha and everyone had left, my man and I plonked ourselves in front of the television, grateful for the calm noise and not the hysterical noise. Everyone would get over it but it was always the same with the topic of how we got here, not just with people I knew, but many will argue these points to the enth degree, with really, no real evidence to be honest.
So for me, I decided that being only human, I really knew sweet F.A and to tie it up nicely in my head, I just gather all of that info and think that maybe we were created by some super entity as a 3rd rock, as a planet within a universe. But that was all, then one of the stars in that universe, with life in it, crashed into this 3rd rock and was the prime delight to allow things to flourish and grow, and so it did. And things did evolve and become this amazing exotic world we are fortunate enough to live on now.
Why can’t everyone be right? They can be right somewhere in a time continuum of the human development and creation. They just all need to put their stories together. But like I say, nobody has the answers, and maybe we don’t even find out a bloody thing when we die and still know jack-shit (a good friend of mine)…
The other thing people tend to do this with is my favorite topic – serial killers. For some inane reason we have to ask whether it is nature OR nurture….it’s both for dog’s sake. If you could take a serial killer as a baby and nurture him in a certain way you will either bring out or highlight the best or the worst of that character. What I think we need to realize is that this is a possibility for every child as again, everybody has the capacity to kill, it just depends on how that is brought out in you. For some people, all that has to happen for them to pull out a gun and kill someone, is an insult outside of a bar. For others (myself included) I would have to be in a situation where my life or the life of someone was threatened and they were being hurt. Then I become the killer. We all sit somewhere on that continuum and depending on how we are treated is how we will react. But at the end of the day, intention, mens rea, is everything. So for me it is both, not one or the other in this instance too. I’ve been finding out in my life that things are not always black and white. Human beings are complex, emotional beings with such a variety of combinations of everything that it is impossible to label or put people in boxes. It just doesn’t work like that.
But I must stop rambling now – I have so much I could scribble about – but I will not bore you with my ranting and raving. I put my soapbox away…;) thanks for reading though, if you got through it!
With a delicate stillness
and a quiet noise
with porcelain perfection
and perfect China poise
the body is supine
lying dead on the floor
supine in exsanguination
a choice to become Death’s whore
Ruby red your favourite colour
you wear it very well
although I won’t see you out much
a story we will tell
Did you get off scot-free?
Did you truly escape?
Or will you have to pay your dues
and return to this landscape…
© Kait King, 2015

At lunch today
I fell a little more
in love with you
Your smile grazes the
inside of my heart with
such passion
At lunch today
your blue eyes brighter
for seeing me
Sparkling over
sparkling water
with just a hint
of lemon
that cannot sour
our chemistry
At lunch today
while I watched you
talk
I followed your lips
watched your mouth
heard nothing
and thought just
about kissing
I love having
Lunch with you
© Kait King, 2017
I don’t want to be here
I don’t want to be here alone
I don’t want to be here alone
in my empty zone
I want to love
I want to love again
I want to love again and be free of all this pain
I can’t do it
I can’t just let it go
I can’t just let it go and
pretend I didn’t know
My soul aches
My soul and my heart ache badly
They ache for man’s cruel inhumanity
I’m a seeker
I’m a seeker of love,
peace, and harmony
I’m a seeker –
please tell me
you’ll follow me
© Kait King, 2015

You look at me
with such
tranquility
I believe perfection
sits here with us
I look at you
with such
admiration
to have entertained me enough
to still sit here
with me
© Kait King, 2016

Hi babe
There you are lying –
fast asleep
You are softly snoring
and my heart still
misses a beat
As the love in me
is so great
there is nothing I need
to contemplate
This is how you are to me
in all your vulnerability
but you will always be safe with me
if you can love – it will set you free
© Kait King, 2015

And confusion rages
like a winter storm
pushing through my
veins and there’s nothing
I can think
Although there is plenty
I could do
But the storm is
blinding and vicious
And I’m thinking of
my life
Like between a rock
and a hard place
And no, I’m not trapped
I’m not unhappy…
with right now
As the ever-bleeding
heart I’m eased
into the terror of
the unknown
It’s not a bad dream
If it was I wouldn’t know if
I really want to wake up –
Does this just mean for me
that it’s time to face reality?
© Kait King, 2016
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

I come home
the cat’s at my feet
kids are crying
but there’s nothing made to eat
It’s a hard day at work
with paper knee deep
and the heater’s broken
so I can’t get to sleep
Yet another day comes
we follow like sheep
I can’t find the faith
to make that big leap
I know I shouldn’t take it in
so very, very deep
But it seems to be sort of extra hard
when you aren’t someone who cheats
© Kait King, 2015

You crush me
Yes, you’re bigger
than me
You’d have to be blind
not to see
that you’re twice the size
of me
But I’m getting tired of
being pushed around
I hate the way you always
bring me down
Slutting yourself all over
this town
And I lie here
so crushed – so deep
underground
© Kait King, 2016

But…
I let you in
Nobody
gets in
You’re supposed to stay
not walk away
I shared
everything –
gave you my all
you were supposed to love me
not push me
and watch
me fall
© Kait King, 2016

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
I just want you to know
that you are not alone
I know it sounds empty –
we can’t talk
I can’t hug you
I can’t invite you into my home
But I need you to know
that there is someone out there
someone who also feels the same
is sick of the same game
and shares the same fears
If I can make you understand
this is not what defines you
but the choices you make
from this day forward
even when you don’t know
what to do
© Kait King, 2015

What cruel god
sent you to me
dark hair
dark eyes
dark soul
What fallen angel
turned on me
bitter anger
bitter words
bitter mind
What desperado
begged to be
the embittered mind
and darkened soul
in me
© Kait King, 2015

I am lying
on my bed
it’s too hot
and the TV’s
too loud
Yet the noisiest
thing
is you
in my head
I can hear
the washing machine
beeping and
beeping endlessly
WTF is wrong
with those things?!
I know I should
eat something
but
I truly can’t be
bothered
it’s just
food
it’s just
money
it’s just
love
it’s just
life…
© Kait King, 2016

warped, crippled
twisted and blackened
my monsters will be set free
decrepit, decayed,
barren of soul
sit here or there
and all will see
Damaged, Dangerous,
Dark and Fright
my monsters travel day or night
bad dreams,
bad thoughts,
dark dreams,
No light –
not all is as it seems
with knuckle-bite fright….
© Kait King, 2015

A young man stood in front of me. Slightly overweight with a bad crew cut. His left arm was heavily bandaged. He held it out to me like an offering – a kind gesture.
“What happened to you?” I asked. He dipped his head shyly and poked a toe at the grubby, coffee-stained carpet.
“It’s a long story.” He mumbled, “I was in love with a girl. I loved her for a really long time.”
His eyes flashed up briefly to catch mine. Glancing up to the right and back to the floor he continued.
“We always walked to school together – I was, I guess, obsessed with her.” I could see another flicker in his eyes, but of hesitation or clutching at a memory. “I bought her flowers and chocolates, wrote her cards and love letters. For a long time…” he trailed off.
“How long?”
“I dunno…” He scrunched his face up as if he was in pain, then breathed out, “Six years, three months, one week and four days.” And obviously still counting, alarmingly!
“That’s a long time to love someone.” I said.
It’s a long time to love someone if they don’t love you back.” He said, looking directly at me – scrutinizing my reaction.
“So why did you keep writing and giving to her?”
I thought she would love me if I could show her how much I loved her. I thought I could have her. She would be mine – but she left. She came up here, to the big smoke. She got a job, and apartment, new friends – a whole life of her own. What she didn’t realise was that she was my life. So I came to live here too. Then I followed her from her work one day. Just pretended I was in the area and had bumped into her, random like. That was not a very good thing to do – she got really mad and told me to leave…to leave her alone.” He stopped, rubbed his good arm across his eyes and sighed.
“That’s when I got this really cool idea!” His face lit up with his remembered ingenuity. “See, I read in a book somewhere that Van Gough had cut his ear off and sent it to the love of his life. So I thought to myself that I would prove how much I loved her – I would send her my arm. That’s bigger than an ear – it must mean more! So the next day I go to work and do my job. When I thought everyone had gone home, I turned my skill-saw back on and tried to cut my arm off.” He swallows a gulp of air and grins at me crazily.
“Geez, didn’t that hurt?” I ask.
“That’s why I stopped!” he laughs. “I pushed my arm onto the saw and it sliced quickly -which was my intention. Blood pissed everywhere – it quickly got through the bones before I had a chance to pull back and well….it was just kind of hanging off and that’s when I thought to myself; Shit, what the hell am I doing – this hurts! What a mess too. I would’ve died too , I suppose, if the other guy hadn’t heard me screaming before I passed out.”
© Kait King, 2015

There’s this buzzy
little feeling –
right in the center of me
And although my body is weighted
something in there
has zero gravity
Is that my Troubled Spirit
or could it be my Lonely Soul?
If I caste this bodily feeling
is it my Spirit that makes me
Whole?
© Kait King, 2016
I hit rock bottom
I sat on that bottom rock
weeds and roots
tethered me close
and not in a Lovers’ Lock
Catatonic in my despair
broken like a car crash victim
I clutched at straws
and sucked in air
feeling like I needed
Lithium
Overwhelmed by what
I’m not
broken by what I was
fighting what it has to be
a fallen star, a lost cause,
tell it as it is
that old me
will never leave
it’s a part of what makes me
my body may have
let me down
but when I write ,
I’m free
© Kait King, 2015
There’s just no stopping
a speeding bullet
straight to the heart
With no clanking armour
or a bullet-proof vest
so it rips you apart
There’s just no way
to make it unscathed
through the day
with no love and no hope
no string to cling to
No reason to stay
© Kait King, 2015
I feel
the sunshine
on my face
through emerald
branches
like delicate
spider-web lace
I feel
the warm
and soothing rays
of those dreamy
summer days
I wish I could
go back
to that place….
© Kait King, 2015
Love flutters
like a drowning butterfly,
swallowed up
whole –
Struggling to keep my
head above the
ripples of your heart
Yet still wanting to be
hopelessly – no,
recklessly
flung into those depths
drowning…
drowning…
Kait King

Every second we suck in air, a child is hurt or dying somewhere in the world – that makes air a pretty high commodity and a very expensive way to look at breathing our air. Therefore make it worthwhile, make it count, but make it count in love and kindness, caring and passing on joy – not just to children but to all. Breathe your air with purpose, you’re really lucky, every day is a blessing 🙂 Kait King 2016

Lovers locked
in this bittersweet
ride
Trapped in the momentum
a beat of the heart
Skipping through hope
not a care in the
world
Lovers locked close
just a boy
and a girl
© Kait King, 2015