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
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

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
It’s your eyes
It’s your mouth
It’s your smile
your heart
your laughter
But it’s my heart
my fear
It’s my love
my hope
That’s what I’m after
Kait King 2017

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
When I was a kid I grew up in a place called Somerset West in South Africa. It was beautiful and I have amazing memories living there with all of the beautifully changing landscapes and incredible wildlife. I used to go to school with a chameleon or a tobacco roller snake curled up in my pocket. I lived, breathed and ate horses (I always hated that saying – I would die before I ate a horse)…maybe…anyway, I was a happy-go-lucky kid. My parents were wonderfully social butterflies, having many dinners and do’s that were amazing. I would sneak downstairs and take a look at all the beautiful people and listen to their laughter and tinkling cutlery. My mother would let me have dessert upstairs while I watched TV way later than what I was supposed to. I had the dogs and cat crowded up in the den and kept hoping that I would be forgotten and could stay here, just like this, always.
Well that didn’t happen and life trundled on – I must have been about 14 or 15 years old and had my first boyfriend. My parents were out one night and so my boyfriend Mike, and I were over at my friends’ house across the road. Before we left we made sure the dogs were not able to get into the lounge, a light on the front porch was left on for when we came back and everything was locked up.
So we had a fun night with our friends’ and decided it was time to head back – my parents would be home soon and Mike had to go home too. We walked hand in hand down the long dark driveway and headed across the road. My house was lit up like a birthday cake. Every light in the house was on. Mike and I stopped dead in our tracks with our mouths open. I went to hurry forward and Mike held me back. We approached with more caution. The front door was also open…and all of the windows. We were terrified but for some reason instead of going back to my friends’ house we kept going towards mine. Mike pushed the front door open and we slowly went in – I was hanging on to Mike for dear life! Everything was super bright with every single light turned on, the guest toilet lights, the reading lamps beside the beds and the main lights…what the hell was going on? What was really weird is that the dogs were bailed into a corner in the kitchen. Not even where their beds were but squashed under the breakfast table. Now we had a Great Dane (Cleo), a Labrador (Lottie) and a Bouvier des Flanders crossed with an English Sheepdog, (Charlie). These were not little dogs or scaredy-cat dogs for that matter, yet they were cowering and terrified of coming out when Mike and I went in. Usually they were delighted to see us and went crazy even if we had only been gone for twenty minutes. The cat, Fluffy-bum, was nowhere to be seen either.
Mike and I scoured the house and turned off the lights and closed the windows – man, we were creeped out. Mike had to go so I reluctantly saw him off and kept the dogs close. I made sure I locked the front door behind me and checked the downstairs windows with a trail of pets behind me. While I wandered around the house trying to feel safe, yet believing I may be locking something in with me rather than keeping something out.
Suddenly I could smell something burning. I poked my nose outside to find out if there was a bush fire somewhere but I could only smell the delicately cloying Wisteria and Jasmine that threaded the hedge. I hurriedly retraced my steps, the dogs got in the way of course and I stumbled over them several times in my hurry. I couldn’t find anything that was turned on now – I had turned it all off! I checked the power outlets all around and unplugged anything that wasn’t being used but nothing was melted or smelt as if it was burning. I checked the oven, the laundry where the iron was – nothing, not a heated thing. I went into the den and turned on the TV. Lottie, Cleo and Charlie followed me in and clambered onto the sofa with me. Fluffy-bum had turned up and wiggled her way in amongst all of the dogginess. I wondered when Mum and Dad would be home, I hoped soon…
Next to the sofa was an old cane rocking chair and foot stool that would now and again crack due to the change in temperature so that was nothing new. But y’know how cats suddenly stop doing what they are doing and just stare at something you know is not human and may be a ghost or something like that. But you don’t want to believe it when it’s in your own lounge. So Fluffy-bum is washing herself, and the dogs’ faces in between their fluttering lip snores and does this petrified statue thing, looking at the old cane rocking chair. It cracks and I think nothing of it. Something has changed, the snoring has stopped and all three dogs are awake, lying there with their eyes open but they had not picked up their heads. That was really strange – they leapt up at anything in a race to meet it, greet it or eat it.
The cane chair cracked some more and then became regular as the chair started tipping back and forth, rocking… I shot straight off the sofa – cat and dogs flying. Something had changed in me – I was fed up with this torturous unknowing. I stormed over to the lounge door – ripped it open and yelled over my shoulder, “GET OUT! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE – GET OUT!” and carried on like a tornado to the front door – ripped that one open, after I fumbled around unlocking it and yelled the same thing behind me. I stopped in my tracks as I felt something move and shift in the atmosphere.
“I’m sorry…” I whispered, “I’m scared of you, I don’t know who you are but I don’t want you here. You need to go to the light, just go…” and I closed the front door. I walked back into the lounge, I felt shattered but hugely relieved. I looked towards the welcoming sofa where Lottie, Charlie, Cleo and Fluffy-bum sat waiting. They looked relaxed and content. I plonked myself down and Fluffy-bum came over, she looked up at me and closed her beautiful green eyes in a smile of thanks and curled up on my lap after a couple of raspy kisses on my hand. Somebody released some of their dogginess and we were almost back to normal. I heard Mum and Dad’s purring car and saw the headlights sweep over the windows in a comforting light – wondering if whomever I had chased out of our house felt as comforted as I did right now, I really hoped so.
Look at me
waffling on
happy as a bee
Look at me
skipping through life
thinking I’m free
Look at me
that wistful child
once so wild
and now independent
and grown
Look at me
with 3 under 3
and a house I don’t
even own
Look at me
shared weekends
if we’re lucky
And I know you’ve been
sucking
someone else’s cherry
lip gloss
Look at me
bitter days
long nights
spent watching crap TV
Never to be
free –
the very unhappy
divorcee
© Kait King, 2015
I see
the lonely landscape
of an empty soul
Someone incomplete
Someone who’s not whole
It doesn’t take another person
to make you feel as one
You must just believe in yourself
and something to enhance you
will come
© Kait King, 2015
Crystal Meth
An addicts’ breath
Inhales a
smoky dream
In reality
You’re never free
Just a brains’
endless scream
Crystal Meth
Talk in depth
Required by any means
Close to death
That last crystal breath
It’s not as great as it seems
Crystal Meth
Families bereft
Bury a loved one, crying
Cold caress
This Crystal Meth
And our children
keep on dying
© Kait King, 2016
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
Lash me to you
bind me
with your love
string me along with
the world’s largest ball of twine
that’s fine
Wrap me in your arms
swaddle me in your dreams
Take me further than
the ends of our Earth
As far as that may seem
© Kait King, 2015
When I sing
I feel this thing
all of my body cells
join
the vibration
When my voice
comes out
and I sing of things
I care about
I feel pure elation
When my body
can’t hep but
move
As I sway and sing
the groove
This here,
this is my perfect situation
© Kait King, 2016
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
Like a moth
dancing
tantalizing
directionless
you gaze at me
and slowly
coax me in
I know my wings
will burn to ashes
My heart
it bursts in fire
but even though
I’m burning
and the flames will swallow
me whole
my destiny
remains nameless
by choices
never made
© Kait King, 2015
Jealousy
Please leave me
Let me walk free
from your grasp
Honesty
Please fill me
Set my words free
with that trust
Stupidity
Please abandon me
Let me hear twice but speak
with one voice
Integrity
Please empower me
Take over my mind and body
to make the right choice
©Kait King 2017
Touching many
or touching none,
the joy it brings
just touching one –
with a torrent of words
cleverly writ,
from the coolest phrases
in ancient Sanskrit
or perhaps a scribe in
a guttural foreign word
is the sweetest thing
anybody ever heard
And the English language
with it’s redonkulous rules
where no matter how good you are
it still makes you a fool…
sometimes
© Kait King, 2016
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
In the dark
© Kait King, 2016
Where on Earth
can you be?
If you’re not here on Earth
with me?
© Kait King, 2016
Don’t know why I’m here
but finally I see
there’s a few hard lessons
to be learned by me
And it doesn’t matter what I
think I’ve learned
I give so much
and still get burned
So how do we turn ourselves
into someone new
It can’t be the easiest thing
to do so
why do we try so hard
to be
society’s perfect human being?
© Kait King, 2015
Wild animal
– resonate in me
Violent Love
Tender Brutality
Snake, lion,
tiger or sheep
– Passionate,
almost Violent Love,
to: shy,
submissive,
meek
Only 50 shades of grey?
That is what I
want to say
– That Hollywood crap
you can keep…
© Kait King, 2017
Peace and love
my friend,
love and light –
the sparking of
two energies
will bring light
into the night
© Kait King, 2016
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
CH: I know what I have
and I know what I want
What I can’t figure out
is what it is that I don’t
Verse 1: I don’t have to take
their crap
and all that yakkity-yak
that does me no good
in my Soul
Verse 2: I’ve walked down
that track
And I have always
looked back
but that does me no good
in my Soul
Verse 3: ‘Cause I’ve cried
nearly every day
And that’s not just something
I’d say
’cause it does me no good
in my Soul
Verse 4: But then I look
at you
And I know Love
so true
and that does the World of Good
in my Soul
© Kait King, 2016
“When you’re driven – you get places.”
© Kait King, 2015
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
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
Music to my ears
bouncing round my soul
shining through my eyes
making me feel full
precious stones of a polished melody
the funky bass is outta sight
pulling strings in harmony
the drums all sittin’ tight
the words are lazy, cruisey, bluesy
summer feeling
stealing through
the music drifting, holding
lifting
Music Love is true
my Music Love is true…
© Kait King, 2015
My joy
your face
My life
misplaced
My breath
filling space
Alive,
still
© Kait King, 2015
- If you are unable to move your perception around, then you may only be able to write one-dimensionally.

When I wake up
next to you
My heart just
wants to burst
In my sleep
I miss you
Like a screaming
blazing thirst
I drag myself
to work and back
just to see your smile
watch TV
talk a little
and make love for a while
when our rumbling
hungry stomachs
lever us out of our lovers’ nook
naked, we open and close cupboards
looking for something to cook
© Kait King, 2015
You will never
have power over me
You’ve taken everything
that you can see
but you will never
have power over me
You will never
have my mind
You’ve beaten me black
held me behind
But I promise, you will never
have my mind
You will never
have my soul
You tell me I’m ugly
stupid and old
But I swear, you will never
have my soul
© Kait King, 2016
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
For me: “Acceptance is an attempt at freedom”
© Kait King, 2015

What is there
to say?
I can’t force you
to stay
I don’t want you to
feel bad
So I try real hard not to
be sad
And I smile and wave to you
goodbye
As I turn, my smile slips and
I just cry
© Kait King, 2016
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…
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
Write Kait
Write Kait
Write some more
So I spread my mind
Like the legs of a
whore
Make yourself write, Kait
It’s not at your leisure
Even being forced
could be a hidden pleasure
Type Kait
Type Kait
And type some more
so my fingers
fly over keys
of some succulent score
© Kait King, 2016
Twisted
lying in bed
watching
a moon
wishing
I had you
here
touching skin
to spoon
© Kait King, 2015
You just don’t look
the same
Your skin so
pearlescent white
Your energy has
left us now
You’ve gone
towards the light
Your hand and cheek
cools quickly
A deathly stillness
about you, sets
If only you could
calm your family
And tell them not
to fret
You will be close
while they need you
They may even
know
But there will come a time
Sweet Angel,
when you really
have to go
© Kait King, 2016
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 quite got to hold your tiny hand
or do anything else that I had planned
I’ll never quite hear you say “Mum you were right!”
Or get to read bedtime stories at night
You’ll never quite miss me when I am not there
Sadly our lives, this time, we’ll not share…
© Kait King, 2015