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
Perseverence
My Mama Says
Mum says
they’re just jealous!
But it doesn’t
stop them
from treating me
like dirt
The teachers say
just stay away
which is easy
if I was invisible
or didn’t mind
getting hurt
© Kait King, 2015
Another Opportunity
Yes love,
that’s exactly
what you do
Dust yourself off
once you’ve
pulled yourself up
and sing
dance
stand tall
Honey if you
think about it
it’s not the first time
and be sure
it will not be the last
You know the rights
from the wrongs
Don’t ever let them change
your song
With a Nelson Mandelian
grace
and a dignity dug from the deep
You will triumph
and in a cloud of
dust, like a rolling
Pig Pen
You flagrantly walk
your walk into
another opportunity
© Kait King, 2016
Fandamily
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
Pre-Occupancy
Pre-Occupancy
So nobody’s home
Just cardboard cut-outs
posed in my brain
Memories I can’t let go
Pre-Occupancy
A way to survive
Somehow to numb
the pain
Somehow to stay
the child
Pre-Occupancy
Merely a distraction
Something to hide
any connection
Anything to avoid
taking action
Pre-Occupancy
© Kait King, 2017
Wildest Wind
A Wild Wind blows amiss
the plants and trees – not a gentle kiss
Like a Louis the Fourteenth dance
All the stately tree branches prance,
Individual as the players
of many orchestrated layers
They fling themselves around
Ancient roots hold tightly in the ground
as the Wildest Wind does its very best
to keep the tree branches from any rest
© 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
Daily grind of a good guy
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
I just want it to end
So I’m sent back and forth
and around again
to specialists and surgeons
who say it’s in my brain
the wiring’s fucked
Is what they say
because a butcher unfortunately
hacked away
at your hope
your dreams
your aspirations
your purpose
you
Forgiveness and acceptance
words to deal with
spilling your guts makes you better
I think that’s just a myth
to stop me
hold me
trap me in belief
I just want it to end
© 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
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
In spite of
I don’t believe you have nothing to say
that you don’t want to stand up
and shout
“don’t treat me that way”
I don’t believe you can keep quiet
for very much longer
the hate in you grows stronger
even though you deny it
it kills you every day
I don’t believe there is happiness in you
that you skip through every day
that your glasses are a rose-colored hue
that you are not reliant in almost every way
but that’s just not true
You drag yourself through every day
knowing that he will
punch you
humiliate you
control you
and you want to kill him
for killing you –
you try to think of another way
but nothing else will do
you have no money, no car or hope
this mean,
ugly-spirited human
says you can’t cope
in the real world
But you know that’s not true –
right?
© 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
I am a Winner
Everyone is so obsessed with winning at everything – work, sports, relationships – absolutely everything. I wonder if those people who are so focused on winning every argument, every game, every decision – have ever thought that they can let it go – like everybody’s a winner in the biggest race of all as far as I’m concerned. If you’ve been born then you have won the biggest race of all! You are a winner – the biggest winner out of millions of other sperm that were in a race for life – I am a winner – we won! Now let’s just succeed at being our own very best here instead of obsessing about being better than someone else’s best…
Acceptance
For me: “Acceptance is an attempt at freedom”
© Kait King, 2015
Perseverence
Your greatness
waits inside you
Like a volcano’s giant core
And you will surprise everybody, love
They’ll look at you in awe
They will see that passion in you
That light you need to shine
Keep walking the walk you walk, my son
Very soon will come your time
© Kait King, 2015