Before you go out tonight…just sayin’

car smash

The crackling laughter

in a clunking room

with a crashing band

on their début

Toppling patrons

a snarling fight

scantily dressed ladies

goose-bump in the night

Security stands

dark at the door

free thinking radicals

spiral on the dance floor

Falling about

in a giggly drove

Time is up –

time to hit the road

A taxi is called

some resist and complain

they take their car keys

never to be seen again

© Kait King, 2015

My Journey with Suicide

Attempt #1

I was two weeks off my 13th birthday – so yeah, I was 12 years old when this happened to me.  We lived in South Africa at the time when I was raped, by a 27 year old American man that I sort of knew.  That was the first time I thought about killing myself.  

I was still thoughtful although quite serious about ending the agony and shame.  I couldn’t look at my Mum and Dad the same way – something had changed in me and I wasn’t their lovely little girl anymore.  I was damaged, tarnished, broken, tainted – I was dirty and undeserving.  I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and how little control I had had over anything that happened to me.  

I couldn’t live with that uncertainty at that age.  I didn’t want to live a fearful, doubting life! I had been, and should have still been, a carefree, happy twelve year old who loved horses.  Now I held secrets, anger, fear and hate.  My horse was my savior. I would cry into his mane all the time, feeling so hopeless. We would go for rides for ages or I would just lie on him, or with him, while he grazed in his paddock.  He was the only one who knew what happened.  And it ate me up.

That was the first time I contemplated suicide.  I will tell you how I tried sometime, but that’s another story.

A Survivor

Last thought in a Playground

playground thought

She’s beating the

crap out of me

I want to be

retaliatory

But I can’t find a gap

to even try

and hit back

She kicks me in

my side

Everyone there wants to see

me cry

I can hear their

jeering calls

of magnified echoes

charging through halls

This strange metamorphosis

in sound

is my ticket off

the gravelly ground

And I can see myself

lying there

The group of bystanders

shout and cheer

My body, I see

crumpled like

a sack

And I never even got a chance

to throw a punch back

© Kait King, 2015

Demon, call my name

Demons

Demon –

Call me Frightalicious

Ghouls and Trolls

Ghosts and Monsters alike

Scaring, creeping, screaming death

Freaking the fuck out

of your night

Don’t start breathing

Hold it in

The Beasts of Evil

Burned like Sin

thumping heart, frightened mind

trembling like the child inside

Don’t you let them –

Not this time…

© Kait King, 2015

The Velvet Darkness

velvet darkness

A velvet darkness

swallows me whole

squashing my air out

taking it’s toll

and all I want

is to breathe again

to run and laugh

with no restraints

The lost and forgotten

never truly gone

hanging on to your spirit

in some shape or form

But the velvet sleep

has a warming charm

as the comfort of death

it means you no harm

Succumb as you must

to it’s deathly grip

For you are the captain

and must go down with your ship

© Kait King, 2015

Horrocide

Horrocide

Death by fright

3 am in the night

when slimy things

crawl with evil

intention

where Coffin Flies fly

and the sky is a scar

that’s all you get to look at

not to mention

a stinking mattress and

a heavy clanking chain

she saw what he did to the other girls’ brain

A frantic

frenzied

desperate head

pleading, begging, wishing

to be dead

Haunting

hurting

watching eyes

that cut glass with spite

coming for you

strangling life

killing you with fright

© Kait King, 2015

My Superpowers: I’m the Invisible Guest

There’s an empty

bottle on the table

A lonely shoe

left on the floor

A dress flung on

the back of a chair

A damp towel hangs

on the door

There’s a shadow

in my bed and

I guess that must be me

I am the Invisible Guest

in my house

as far as I can see

I float over to my bed

to see the shadow

tucked in deep

You would never

think I was dead

I look like I’m asleep

No one knows

I’ve gone yet

No one knows

I’ve left

I’m sad to leave

my family

crying and bereft

But there’s a light

shining for me

I’m ready to walk

in to

if there’s everything

I’ve forgotten,

I’ll remember

I loved you.

Kait King ♥️

14th September 2019

A Treasured Life

Me n my Dad

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

Oh no, I can’t get over it…

Getting over it - whatever

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….

Eddie G

Eddie G

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

Suicide – is it really a free ticket out?

Suicide

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