So this is it
I mean nothing to you
I no longer exist in your world
There is no contact number for me
In your cellphone
any more…
Kait King © 2015
So this is it
I mean nothing to you
I no longer exist in your world
There is no contact number for me
In your cellphone
any more…
Kait King © 2015
This is a true story:
There was this time, when I was with the Police, that a small, older woman came to the front counter to report her son missing. Her clothing looked a little disheveled and she was carrying a plastic bag. Although her hair was tied back, plenty of it had escaped and almost floated around her, like a wispy halo. I believe she was of Indian descent and was a little difficult to understand but certainly not impossible. Naturally this was also compounded by her stress and anxiety of her belief that her son was missing. In briefly assessing the situation I guessed her son would have to be in his late twenties at best and this was not going to be a child we would be looking for.
So she tells me her son is in Australia and he calls her every day to make sure she is all right as she has had some issues too, with her mental health. But disturbingly he hadn’t contacted her for 4 days. She describes him as the loving son, the good son. On a crumpled piece of paper she’s handed me, is an Australian phone number, his passport number and a photocopied driver’s licence picture but no licence details. She’s pleading with me to find him – like any mother, she just wants to know her boy is OK. I see the confusion and fear in her eyes and feel compelled to do whatever I can to help her. So I show her a place to sit and go back into the offices to dig around, both with the phone calls and the data base surely I will be able to give her an answer. And after that there is a lot more to do but I’m hoping it doesn’t have to go that far.
I call the number she’s given me and ask if her son lives there and is employed there as the manager of the backpackers hostel. According to his mother, he’s been working there for 3 years – y’know, he gets cheap or free accommodation for managing the place. Yet according to the person who answered the phone this was not the case. Her son, let’s call him Mike, had not worked there for two years at least. It was the owner I was talking to so I just scratched around the surface to find out if he was worth digging – and he was, as I found some interesting, although sad, information.
So the owner of the backpackers hostel tells me this; Mike left the job two years ago because his mother found out where he worked. She was mentally unstable and harassed him and called the cops on him numerous times even though he was just trying to quietly live his life and get on with it. She told the cops he was suicidal or had killed someone or was going to be killed.
Also, Mike sent her money every month too, to help her cover bills and have a better life. The hostel owner understood she was under care and lived in a particular place but he couldn’t say where. He believed she had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. I thanked him for his help and asked if he knew where Mike might be now. He didn’t – but he did have an old mobile phone number which I took down. I rang the mobile number which was in Australia too and left a message on an answer phone – which did not say ‘Mike, leave a message’ – but someone else’s name. This may be for a very good reason though.
Mrs Patel and I wait for the phone call, I make her and I a cup of tea and I sit with her. With the information I had about her state of mind I gently coaxed her to tell me what was going on. From her perspective at least. I was prepared to wait half an hour before expecting to have the phone call returned – naturally I’d prefer immediately, especially when it’s a message from the police.
“So when was the last time you actually heard from Mike?” I ask between a couple of sips of tea.
“He’s angry with me!” She exclaimed.
“That’s Ok, families squabble – but how long has he been angry with you for?”
She squeezes the paper cups’ rim flat between two worn-out looking fingers and twists the cup gently in her other hand – just going round and round the rim.
“I haven’t spoken to him in two years…” she drifts off and starts to tear up. “I had a dream that swords were stabbing him all over and I could feel the fear and the danger he was in. I need to help him – to warn him of this!” She kept looking at the cup and turning it. “He will die if I don’t find him and protect him! I need to – I’m his mother!”
My heart went out to her as I knew she truly believed her son was in danger.
“Is this why you came into the station to report him missing? I ask.
“Yes…” she nodded. “You will find him and I will be able to tell him, save him.” She gazed at me anxiously.
I take her hand from the cup and lightly hold her fingers, forcing her to make eye-contact with me and stop giving rim to the cup!
” Mrs Patel – who do you think would want to do this to him and why?”
“Well God, of course.” She seemed almost startled at the idea that I wouldn’t know that. I could see her change as she became incredibly suspicious and cautiously pulled her hand away.
“What makes you think God would want to do that to your son?” I ask openly.
“I messed with the TV aerial at home and was so angry with one of the other people that live there that I pee’d outside in the garden…”
I’m not often one lost for words but this time I coughed to make up some thinking time and had a sip of tea.
“Sorry Mrs Patel – excuse me…so you went to the toilet outside in the garden? And that is why God is going to hurt your son with swords?” I have to use a fair amount of question marks as that is what is grammatically correct but really these questions are used like statements – she’s nodding and confirming as I’m feeding her back her story so that I can understand what the hell she is talking about. That really is irrelevant but I realise I have a person here who is mentally ill and has quite possibly not taken her medications for who knows how long.
Short story long – apparently the television backed onto her room and made too much noise. Often it was late and it was always the same old fellow watching something too loudly as he was deaf. So when she asked him to turn the volume down so that she could go to sleep, he would tell her to fuck off and all sorts of other nasty stuff – and loudly, being deaf and all. So in order to get him back, after not having any luck and being called names, Mrs Patel took the TV aerial so that he couldn’t watch any programmes at all.
So the old fellow upped the anti and left the TV on with the white noise at it’s loudest and had been going to bed deaf as a doornail and at the other end of the residence where the men slept. Well Mrs Patel was furious and took a dump and so forth under the window of the old man and being summertime it certainly didn’t take more than a few times to get flies a-buzzing and a super high hum going under his window.
After, funnily enough, four days of this drama going on, Mrs Patel suffered severe guilt for her actions and believed God was going to strike her son dead. When I did track the son down eventually, I explained to him that I wouldn’t expose his whereabouts or phone number etc to his mother. She was very ill and he had been embarrassed too many times and lost too many jobs by allowing her into his life. I felt sorry for him too. It’s never easy living with mental health issues whether you are the one ill or the surrounding network of someone who is ill.
Well I had listened to her story, I knew her son just did not want anything to do with her. This wasn’t something that was going to be healed and she couldn’t expect a phone call on Wednesday at 2 pm or anything. Something else needed to change as the relationship between them both would not.
I asked her afterwards, ” How great do you think God is?”
“Oh God is greater than all things.” She said very confidently.
“Is he greater than man? Than a human being?”
“Of course – he made us, his is greater than everything put together, his love is greater – just everything.” She replied.
“So then tell me this, why would God have such a human spiteful nature to hurt your son – that spite or judgement is a human trait. God is far, far more loving than that. Another human being may feel like that if you do…you-know-what under his window – but God would never do that – he’s most probably chuckling at us having this conversation now.”
I smiled at her and she started to cry, I quickly put my tea down and gave her a hug. She clung to me like a limpet and had a good weep. I handed her tissues which didn’t really get used as much as my shirt. Finally she pulled away and wiping her sad brown eyes, she said to me, ” I have never thought of it that way before – of course God wouldn’t be that petty!” She had a watery smile on her face and gave me another hug. “Thank you , thank you so much!” She said delightedly.
“Now you just need to make friends with your house-mate I believe.” I winked at her.
I found out her carer’s name and tracked down which residence she worked in and she came in to pick up Mrs Patel. She was so grateful to find her safe and sound, she said that poor old Mrs Patel does this every now and again. Although we didn’t see her back – not while I was there anyway.
That’s a bad combination
A Lover who’s a Man
It doesn’t matter, you see
’cause he’ll take it if it’s free
Yeah…that’s a bad combination
a Lover who’s a Man
© Kait King, 2015
I’ve often wondered why just about everything we discuss has to be blah blah blah OR blah blah blah… Why can’t it be both? Why is it not possible that these things are symbiotic? Co-morbid? Dual catalysts? I listen to people discuss the big question of how we got here. The options, in this conversation, may I be so polite, are:
Okay, so everybody’s got a point and nobody has the answer so there is some validity of possibility in each perspective. Especially if you consider the human to be made up of physical, mental and spiritual capacities and needs, which I do. And in this debate there is even more than two sides to contemplate. So each individual has solid, understandable reasons – well within reason, and are glued to the ground on what those reasons are and why. The discussion becomes what people like to call “heated”. I, totally unlike my robust debatable self, still did not get involved. I could hear the rising of offensiveness from each party as the others poo-poo’ed each others perspectives and theories. It wasn’t going to end well, nobody likes to be poo-poo’ed.
After the hoo-ha and everyone had left, my man and I plonked ourselves in front of the television, grateful for the calm noise and not the hysterical noise. Everyone would get over it but it was always the same with the topic of how we got here, not just with people I knew, but many will argue these points to the enth degree, with really, no real evidence to be honest.
So for me, I decided that being only human, I really knew sweet F.A and to tie it up nicely in my head, I just gather all of that info and think that maybe we were created by some super entity as a 3rd rock, as a planet within a universe. But that was all, then one of the stars in that universe, with life in it, crashed into this 3rd rock and was the prime delight to allow things to flourish and grow, and so it did. And things did evolve and become this amazing exotic world we are fortunate enough to live on now.
Why can’t everyone be right? They can be right somewhere in a time continuum of the human development and creation. They just all need to put their stories together. But like I say, nobody has the answers, and maybe we don’t even find out a bloody thing when we die and still know jack-shit (a good friend of mine)…
The other thing people tend to do this with is my favorite topic – serial killers. For some inane reason we have to ask whether it is nature OR nurture….it’s both for dog’s sake. If you could take a serial killer as a baby and nurture him in a certain way you will either bring out or highlight the best or the worst of that character. What I think we need to realize is that this is a possibility for every child as again, everybody has the capacity to kill, it just depends on how that is brought out in you. For some people, all that has to happen for them to pull out a gun and kill someone, is an insult outside of a bar. For others (myself included) I would have to be in a situation where my life or the life of someone was threatened and they were being hurt. Then I become the killer. We all sit somewhere on that continuum and depending on how we are treated is how we will react. But at the end of the day, intention, mens rea, is everything. So for me it is both, not one or the other in this instance too. I’ve been finding out in my life that things are not always black and white. Human beings are complex, emotional beings with such a variety of combinations of everything that it is impossible to label or put people in boxes. It just doesn’t work like that.
But I must stop rambling now – I have so much I could scribble about – but I will not bore you with my ranting and raving. I put my soapbox away…;) thanks for reading though, if you got through it!
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
That’s the last thing you wore
that held your warm body close
It was the last thing before
your heart and pressure slowed
A cloth got to finally hold you
something I never got to do
People say that it was better that way
But I don’t know if that’s quite true
I hold your once sweaty t-shirt
drenched now with my own tears
and try to inhale what’s left of you
As it fades from all the years
© 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
So do you think it may annoy you
should I love you too much
That time would trap you in a heartbeat
If I won’t give you up
Is it crazy to think
that you will only touch my skin
stroke my hair
and let me in
Will it be overwhelming if I say
I love you every day
leave notes in your lunchbox
and always want you to stay
the night
the week
forever
Is it rude of me to want all of you
not a share, a percentage or a piece
but the everything and nothingness
of you
the very most and the very least
© Kait King, 2015
If I win
I will have won this
fair and square
If I lose
I will have lost this
and won’t have to care
about you
or your new girlfriend
If I’m wrong
I will be cataclysmically incorrect
I will owe on every bet
and beg you to forget her
and her endless bank account
legs and youth
If you could just be brave
and tell the truth
But I see you squirming
awkward in your plush car seat
I can see the worm –
it’s turning
Now it’s with me
you cheat…
© Kait King, 2015
What do you mean?
You don’t get it?
I’ve talked the hind leg
off a donkey
telling you why it is
what it is
and no
I don’t regret it
How can you say that?
How would you know?
I get pissed that I’m not good enough
I won’t put my assets on show
I watch you watching yourself
under the radar
so low
Hiding who you really are
and now I wish I didn’t know
When did you do that?
Is it like, someone I know?
There is no name, no face
No one to show
And I need a body to bury
So I can let you go
© 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
When it seems to me
that this is the end
you just keep coming back
to me, my friend
I say that word with a smirk
on my face
I can’t just be friends
and your shit’s at my place
you’ll look at me with
your shiny eyes
pull my heartstrings
like a baby’s cries
And it won’t matter
‘cos it’s all lies
Too much Too late Too soon
© Kait King, 2015
Please don’t make me feel stupid
for cherishing you
Don’t laugh at my love
I don’t know what else to do
Although I guess it’s pretty clear
that I’m not the one for you
© Kait King, 2015
We teach our kids
to have a smaller phone
a faster car
a bigger home
We teach our kids
to take what they can
Never mind if you stomp on
plant
animal or
man
Little do we know
the devastating result
will be that human life on Earth
will grind to an abrupt halt
© Kait King, 2015
I watch you grow in
the sunshine of my love
with raindrops of pure joy
you fall around me
endlessly
In the deepest, darkest shadows
You shine your brightest light
every day
every night
My baby boy
you turn my life around
Baby boy
you turn my life upside down
As the seconds with you turn into years
your fearless journey with
true innocence moves away
suddenly you’re a schoolboy
with a schoolbag
who won’t hold my hand anyway
My baby boy
you turn my life around
Beautiful boy
you turn life upside down
Strong enough to climb
the tallest tree
your big brown eyes smile down
your laughter falling like autumn
leaves
fall to cover me
© Kait King, 2015
Something nefarious
is going on
Something deceitful
something quite wrong
Then something fantastic
is happening here
Someone’s falling in love
someone finally cares
Now something sad
has taken place
She can’t even bear
to look at his face
So something shocking
has now occurred
She killed them both
Have you heard?
Something nefarious
is going on
Something deceitful
something quite wrong
© Kait King, 2015
What do we want
from each other
what do we hope
to discover?
Are you a friend…
or my lover?
© Kait King, 2015