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

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
I am a chocolate addict
call me what you will
Mouth open wide
Chocolate pouring in
that’s how I’d get
my thrill
I am a sugar junkie
call it how you want
I order a starter to have
dessert
at the restaurant
Sweet tooth, sweet freak
call it what you like
but nothing makes me happier
than my sweet sugar
spike!
© Kait King, 2015
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

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
I can hear the cicadas
with their sliding
grinding legs
laughing kids
melting ice-creams
Clothes freshly dried
on a line
neatly pegged
That sun shine
warm tar
summer rain smell
That open-roofed car
chasing oceanic swells
Those exotic looking palms
lining Rodeo-type roads
giggling girls
in bikinis and curls
with their Summer Sunbodies
on show
© 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
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

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
The first time
it wasn’t that much
fun
before I got
my panties off
he was already
done…
© Kait King, 2015
No, I’m not OK
she said
And I didn’t know
what to do
But all she really needed
was someone to
talk to
Not everything is
fixable
or even wants to
be fixed, so
we learn to live with
special things
sometimes things we would
never show
some things are just too ugly
to let anybody know
© Kait King, 2016

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

There’s a part of me
that will always go on
I’ve shared this with our Mother Earth
She called him my son
There’s nothing so wild
as the ride that we’re on
mother and child
a bond
we hold on
And there you were
with paintbrush eyelashes
A baby blue blanket
and everything about you was so small
And here you are
with a shy tattoo on you
An eye, ear, lip piercing
And everything about you now is tall
There’s all of you
that makes me smile
When you hug me so big and
hang around for a while
There’s you and me and then
everybody else
I never knew that it would be you
to teach me about myself
© Kait King, 2015
I love you Jay 🙂 xxx

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
While she’s trying harder
working it out
all her problems, hangups, pity and
self-doubt
And she tries too hard to achieve
because she’s lonely, angry,
she’s had no love to eat
And as far as this woman knows
it’s like a picture, no – a painting
or a movie, too slow
As far as this woman knows
it’s like fighting the fight
but not a fight that you chose
So she’s crying alone
no sleep at night
I wish I could find her
and tell her –
it will all be all right
© Kait King, 2015

I don’t accept it!
Fine – kid yourself
How long do you think you can keep this up for?
As long as it takes…why?
You’ll die before you realise the truth y’know…
Whaaaaat??
Well, the truth is, acceptance.
If you accept it, it can’t fight you
That’s fine but what if I’m looking for a fight!
Whaaaaat??

I’m tired of you
And you’re tired
of me too
We see it in
each other
and we know what
we must do
But who has
the bed?
There was only
ever one, not two
What about the
fridge? The stereo
and our cat, Moon?
How do you
separate seventeen years
of stuck together?
How do you split
a vow
that was s’posed to
be forever?
When seventeen years
is much too soon© Kait King, 2016
I’m screaming
your name
and it just drops
into
nowhere
© Kait King, 2015
Just before a storm there’s that heavy aching feeling in the sky and electric air. It’s as if the god’s have eaten too much and they have swelled up the sky and filled it with their tautness.
The grasses, trees and shrubs are dead still and almost magnified – waiting – straining and erect for those precious drops of rain to fall upon them so that they too, like the gods, may gorge themselves on welcome water and be able to store up enough supplies to last them through the harder times in between.
I sat just outside to the left of my tent under a tree. I am watching for all the ‘damp animals’ – the one’s who like to frolic and dance amongst the drops as if giving thanks to those glorious gods who have so very kindly provided life support once again.
Gorgeous George is playing with some of the dry leaves that are beginning to stir from being whispered at a little too strongly by the ground winds that slowly pick up as the storm intensifies.
George is my kitten, only not so little anymore – I decided to bring him with me again – I had no idea that he would bring me so much comfort here out in the vast scrubland of Africa.
There is a small lizard; I can see him panting on a flat rock. His breaths are short – he’s sniffing the moist air- totally immobile. George has seen him too and stops fighting his leaf. Slowly he sinks a few centimeters closer to the ground – his eyes almost fully taken up with the expanded pupil. Wriggling furiously he prepares to pounce – still miles away from what he believes is an unknowing lizard. Changing tactics he stalks a little closer. The lizard has seen George now but seems unintimidated. Peering out from under a stalk of whispy grass, 2 out of ten for camouflage George, his whiskers straining, he leaps. His intense energy and passion catapult him well past the intended target which scuttles in between the cracks in the rock unscathed…for now.
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…
Coming up for air
I see our tangled underwear
Like two bodies closely entwined
like the curl on a peeled orange rind
Resting nested soft and quiet
in the stillness after the storms’ riot
Gentle and soft, a loving embrace
your cotton jocks and mine, which are lace
© Kait King, 2015
It’s a Universal sickness
where nobody seems
to care
Our priorities are different
and now we don’t know how
to share
It’s a Universal sickness but
does anyone really want
to hear?
Does anybody even notice
the hopeless standing there?
Please show me a place that’s different
where people have a sense
of Universal share
© Kait King, 2016

Don’t you leave me
left behind
Don’t you cut me
out of your mind
Can’t you see you’re here all alone?
Can’t you hear your heart say
This is home?
Don’t you hurt me for ever more
Don’t you walk away
and leave it all
You can’t hold me like that
then let me go
There’s something more
that you don’t know…
© Kait King, 2015
In my kitchen
like a mad scientist
mixing and concocting
a kitchen bitch’s bliss
I stir the witch’s cauldron
a punch of that
a pinch of this
many mouths share muffled mmmm’s
a kitchen bitch’s bliss
© Kait King, 2015
I know I’ve never loved
anyone, anywhere
in any way even
close to the way
I love you
I’ve never hurt
anyone, anywhere
in any way
more than I’ve tortured
myself
about you
© Kait King, 2015

You stand there
not knowing what to do
you can’t believe the Police are here
surely this isn’t true?
A blue light spins around the room
you can see the body
shadowed by gloom
It’s all surreal, but what you had to do
If you hadn’t grabbed that knife
the body would be you
You look down at your shaking hands
oddly think about how free you are
to meet
your holiday plans
He can’t really be dead – why haven’t
they called an ambulance?
And again, you realize …
that you are here…
just by chance
© Kait King, 2016
Good poetry is knowing when to stop the rhyme
Whether it’s two or two hundred
and twenty-two lines
© Kait King, 2015
It’s going to get dark again, even if the sun is shining I know what I’m in for. Staring into nowhere with a sense of hopelessness and despair that seems to have no end at the time. So you’re back, you’ve returned with your sticky, clingy sadness I must wear as a shawl. It’s a shawl made of all my wrong-doings, lost dreams, failed relationships, and a frightening anxiety about the future. It weighs a tonne and I struggle to sit up in bed with it on, or get out of bed, or brush my teeth or my hair…you weigh me down, Depression.
I didn’t know I was feeling so bad until I was in the kitchen making myself a coffee…I had been thinking negatively, granted. And the cold of winter doesn’t make it easy either so the future looks grim with the situation I’m in. This is the exact time the Shawl of Depression draped herself securely around me so I had to drag myself sadly and tearfully back to my bed. I see the sky, the sun, the birds, the beauty – the beauty in everything but me and my life. Then I tell myself off for being so ungrateful and get angry at the things that stop me being who I want to be. My anger covers the fear and anxiety. I would rather be angry than scared. It’s a long process to get to angry. It’s a long, unseen, unknown process that puts me there in the first place though.
I lie facing the wall. I don’t want to look at beautiful things. My eyes are open, I’m not moving though – my breathing hasn’t changed, it’s still, rhythmical and the tears just seem to fall out of my eyes endlessly. No noise, no change, nothing – just a waterfall coming out of my face that seems like it won’t let up. I don’t understand the grief or the sadness. Perhaps it is the broken me saying goodbye to the real me but refusing to let me go… In a little bit I will sit up and write about this. It’s crippling and yet I know I have to ride this out. I know I should take a good look at those feelings but I’m just too angry at the moment…
Kait King 2017
I didn’t die
I’ve just upgraded ….
© Kait King, 2015
There’s anarchy
in the galley
In the kitchen
there’s uproar
The patrons have
ordered something but
there isn’t any more
The tantrumic Chefs
wave teatowels in despair
throw their knives around
and their hands in the air
The one who’s ordered
the supplies
takes a New York stripping down
The Head Chef shouts and
screams a little
wearing his foreign frown
Wildly gesturing – his anger
festering and then
things seem to calm down
Kait King 2015
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
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
With a new non-smoker righteousness
you glare at all of me
I’m vulnerable, I’m open
Don’t you want to hold all of me?
Will you curse the shape of my body
or my heart
my spirit
my dream or
perhaps just all of me
Your love that I
need so desperately
makes you dislike me
immediately
I am but a child
I didn’t ask to be born
But please, can you not hug me,
feed me –
keep me warm?
© Kait King, 2015
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