My Mama Says

jealous_love_by_kimded-d2yttnr

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

What’s wrong with you

mary bell

Mary Bell

what the hell

at ten

was inside your head?

To choke a

little boy of 3

until he’s stone

cold dead

And then to carve

your name in him

the initials MB

in his chest

Did you want everyone

to know

that this work

was your best?

I know your mother

was a prostitute

and she did terrible

things to you

And is she the one

responsible

for making you

into you?

Others have

an even sadder tale

and are left with

deep scars too

but others haven’t

needed to kill

or do the things

you do.

© Kait King, 2015

Crush

Crush

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

Were you ever really here?

Dad in the middle - Holland

Sometimes I wonder if you were

ever really here

Somehow I know what’s true

when you were always there

But as life returns back

to a more even keel

I can’t help this wonderment

this dreamlike existence I feel

You are gone yet you remain

and as the world lazily spins on the same

those 70’s and 80’s – a very different look

maybe just a new chapter in my new story book

As you are not really gone

I will sing your same old song

And I will die at my age and my son

will turn the next blank page

© Kait King, 2015

The Unwanted

the unwanted

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

Attempt # 1 Method (s)

Attempt 1 Method s

I remember sitting on the edge of my parents double bed upstairs.  I had a little pearl handled gun in my lap.  I was sobbing my heart out.  I truly felt worthless, unwanted, damaged and broken.  I was sad that I would miss all of my family and hurt them but I didn’t want to pretend that I was happy to be having my 13th birthday – that I was a teenager, all grown up.  I didn’t want to grow up.  I wanted to stay the way I was from a week ago.  And I knew I could never go back and it would never be put right or changed.  It couldn’t be.

That pain of hopelessness that clung to me like an overly small wet-suit strangling the life out of me, that was overbearing and I was being crushed beneath it.  I held the gun up to my head, sobbing.  My finger wasn’t on the trigger just yet – I knew it was loaded.  It always was – it weighed differently when it was empty.  I held that gun in my mouth and I thought about how awful it would be for my Mum and Dad to find me like that – in their bedroom, on their bed or floor – depending on how I collapsed when the bullet plowed through my brain.  I tried holding it in my mouth. The metal barrel rattled loudly against my teeth I was shaking so much. And the messy result would be the same.  I changed my mind and decided to do something a little less messy and dramatic.  I didn’t contemplate leaving a suicide note.  I was ashamed that I had been raped, ashamed, embarrassed and feeling guilt, overwhelming guilt.  I didn’t know what it was in my head or my heart, I just felt incredible guilt at what had happened to me.  What would I say in my note other than I was sorry?  That I loved them and it wasn’t their fault? Wow – I think about that now and wonder if I had actually pulled the trigger that day, knowing what I know now, how devastating that would be in itself – but to not have a note that could free them from the constant wonder and doubt…

Anyway my next plan was to climb in the bath with a whole lot of Panadol and a razor blade.  Razor blades were easy to come by back then.  My dad had one of those twist on and off razors and you slipped the double sided Wilkinson blade in very carefully as it is mighty sharp!  So I ran the bath, I felt very determined that I wanted to be out of here.  I felt I had no future to look forward to.  I swallowed the 18 pills I found and carefully undressed and climbed into the bath.  It felt like the right thing to do.  I felt elated at the thought of freedom from this constant hurt.  I dragged the blade at an angle across my left wrist.  It started to bleed – it was like a deep paper cut – very thin.  I drew another one next to it.  Nothing hurt.  I swapped hands and held the blade in a rather slippery left hand.  The water was turning pink.  I placed the blade at the beginning of my right wrist.  My fingers were getting sliced as the blade slipped awkwardly but I managed to drag it vertically up my arm.  I just lay back, waiting.  I felt excited, as I say, at being able to escape all of this.

But my girlfriend from next door helped me to live.  She found me.  Poked her fingers down my throat and made me vomit up all of the pills in a chalky, semi formed mass with the milk she forced me to drink.  I hate milk on its own to this day.  She plastered and bandaged me up.  I begged her not to tell anyone and she never has.

A Survivor

“Let it go, Michael!”

let it go michael

Life looks pretty bleak

If you’re a resistant control freak

Nothing ever goes as it’s s’posed to

See it’s up to the Universe if it chose to

Nothing lasts forever

You’ll never be that clever

To beat the hand of Fate

Before you choose and it’s way too late

Nothing ever stays the same

You shouldn’t be afraid of change

If you dig your toes in and won’t budge

Or if you stay angry, hold a grudge

Life looks pretty bleak

If you’re a control freak

I would imagine intense anxiety

when you can’t make things as you want them to be

And an obsessive, over-busy mind

That’s never easy to unwind

So you find something else to get it fixed

But now – you look drugged…

Not happy, in those pics

© Kait King, 2016

After the Fact

After the Fact

He rolled her up

in the carpet

He tied her up

real tight

He threw her into

the trunk of

his car

And screeched out

into the night

He knows he must not

draw attention

He must slow down his breath

and calm

He drove around

for hours

With her body

in the back of

his car

Delusional or clear

of mind

It really didn’t

matter

He was clear enough

to clean up

the mess

And removed

all of her blood

he splattered

He contemplated water

He thought about the dump

He thought about a mountain top

He could make it look like

she jumped

As dawn approached,

a screaming light

His stomach started

to rumble

So he drove her through

the drive thru

And didn’t miss a beat

or fumble

A steady hand

held out dollar bills

But his eyes he kept downcast

Not a thought spared for

his wife in the trunk

The love that didn’t last

© Kait King, 2015

If you want to

if u want to

I have a notion

that your emotion

is not just a session

of dark depression

but a mark on your heart

like a bite from a shark

missing pieces never found

and this is why you’ve gone to ground

I can guess

you don’t see this as a test

but an evil calculation

to distract you from your destination

A calculated move

to jig you outta your groove

But the world is not against you

just try on the other shoe

it’s not that hard to do

and if you walk a decent mile

you might cry but you might smile

ain’t it worth it in the end

if you find you’re your best friend

So don’t knock yourself so hard

you’re not stupid or a retard

We are all given different gifts

And as we live our outlook shifts

from continental rifts

to continental drifts

we figure it’s not just about ourselves

that there are no Christmas elves

and that you need to really care

for everything

if you want to get along here

© Kait King, 2015

Show Me You

I want the truth

The truth about you

Not the bullshit

Covering your skin

But the real you

The real one within

I want to see you

To see you naked

Stripped of all worldly things

Nothing to hide behind

Show me you

Bare naked

Let me into your mind

Kait King 13th September 2018

University Sleep

University sleep

It’s time for me to close my eyes

the sleep – she calls me in

tempting me with promises

of dreams from deep within

Happy to drown in fluid darkness

my lungs relaxed and full

spiralling soft, my body jumps

but still I feel the pull

And so I slumber deep and long

my dreams are all but lost

as I pull myself up from this sleep

to be chilled by morning’s frost

My bed, it lies like a crumpled body

it’s death, by noose, my sheets

I pull on my jeans, headphones on

and head into the streets

The bus stop frozen from icy glares

the wind a second best

We glide and jerk through glistening streets

I know I’m not a guest

My homework lies upon my lap

I want to turn around and go back home

Even my music has lost it’s colour

and bleeds into a drone

We fall out of the bus in an untidy crowd

the Subway reeks of cheese

I feel broken and somewhat heavy

Would they notice if I fell on my knees

My iPod turns into my lecturer

and continues in a monotonous tone

My brain has surpassed this walled in campus

I fall back into my cool dream zone

My liveliness is so inspired by friends of sweet love and sweet dreams

this shining light of laughing free

and left splitting at the seams

We say adiós and walk away

our paths cross again tomorrow

I find myself doubting myself

is this the path that I should follow?

I stand in the queue, the bus pulls up

we file in like a production line

stamped and paid and sit if you’re lucky

the sun’s shining and every thing’s fine

I walk briskly home, it’s getting dark

I walk in tune with a song

And wonder at ideologies like…

why can’t we all get along?

It’s warmer inside and my little friend

turns himself inside out to see me

I talk, I eat, I study hard just to go back

to be soft, warm and dreamy

© Kait King, 2015

Go towards the light….

go towards the light

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.

You’ll say to me

You say to me

I’m uncomfortably present

awkwardly I’m here

Cleverly you’ve trapped me

by playing on my fear

I don’t want to say yes

but something in me is sparked

and if I don’t say yes

I won’t have a heart

you’ll say to me

You’ll say to me

I don’t really love you

that I’m not really into it

and my love is not true

And yet that twist inside me

coils like a snake

ready to make me feel bad

making me ready to hate

myself

© Kait King, 2015

But I’ve already paid!

Already paid

With some leftover tea

I chuck some painkillers at me

A certain kind of guilt and

a definitive disgust wash over me

I fight every day

to keep a smile on my face

being strong, overcome

I have a new life to embrace

I know this is not what

I signed up for

I’ve paid the full price

for so much more

But I guess some you win

and some you lose

So I experience my life

in a different pair of shoes

But I’m still so sure

I was destined for so much more

so much more

I’ve already paid for

© Kait King, 2015

Trust me

Trust me

Meet me in the middle

and I’ll take you to the end

Tell me that you trust me

and I’ll let you be my friend

Promise me the world

and it’ll fall at your feet

Run the faster race

’cause it’s me you have to beat

Don’t believe in rumours

and they won’t control your life

Believe in what you want to be

and step into that light

© Kait King, 2015