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
Writing
Mother’s Day every day

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
Summer Sunb0dies
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
Whoever you are
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
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
But…
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
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
Dark Man
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
knuckle-bite-fright
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, gnarled,
knuckle-bite-fright
not all is as it seems….
© Kait King, 2015
Slowly Summer
With drifting tendrils
of Spring
Summer curls her way into
places where shadows hang around
with a Wintery gruffness
A warmth travels –
infrequently
flying through
the trees and grasses
with just a tease
of what’s to come
Sky of blue and spring rains fall
the fluttering tweets
and grassy delights of the
new nesting families hurrying along
Spring’s lazy gait
© Kait King, 2016
This Buzzy Little Feeling
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
Crazy Horse
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
The first time
The first time
it wasn’t that much fun
before I got my panties off
he was already done…
© Kait King, 2015
Are You OK?
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
Rock Bottom
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
No Way
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
Summer Daze
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
You must be logged in to post a comment.