In the neighbourhood
it’s not so good
people get hurt
nearly every day
And even if you knew
who did it
you could never say
In the neighbourhood
it’s not so good
that’s where the body lay
Where his Mama cried
where others had died
And all the community
could do
was pray
© Kait King, 2015
violence
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
Last thought in a Playground
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
Equal but Different – Let’s Celebrate!
I believe we are stumbling blindly into an inferno of uncontrolled hedonistic violence and sex. There is no argument that sex and violence are two of the most basic instincts in a human, particularly a male as he is the protector and the pro-creator; or that these two basic reptilian responses have been a part of human nature since the beginning of time.
What I find concerning is the lack of the repulsion response to violence or unnatural/violent sex. Research indicates that women, or young girls, are not only joining gangs and becoming more violent in their everyday life, but also committing suicide in more violent ways. If we look back in time, women are the carers, the nurturers, the collectors, and gatherers. Women were seen as mysterious as they bled and didn’t die and could give birth to another human being. An amazing, necessary, and painful responsibility, but one that sets us apart as women and the carers of the next generation. I think we have lost track of that view. Is it because of Women’s Liberation? I don’t think it is because of that, but perhaps a catalyst after so many years of denial and oppression for women that they just went crazy and like most things they snowball into something unmanageable or inexplicable. Women needed to create their own freedom, this was a necessary journey but now we need another hero to pull us back to reality, balance and a normality.
So back to the violence factor. Women used to gas themselves or take pills to commit suicide. Men were the ones who used guns and ropes to do the same. Back in the 1970’s more and more suicides committed by women were found to be with razors, they would slit their wrists. Then they started shooting themselves and hanging too. Women were deemed to see suicide as a way of going to sleep and to look as “peaceful” as possible. They didn’t want their faces blown apart or a mess everywhere – that typical female response seems to be fading as we move forward, women seem to want to be seen as violent, angry, retaliatory and don’t fuck with me individuals. As tough as a man, as strong as, capable as etc. And there is no reason we can’t be. We are all on different levels of ability – what we shouldn’t be doing is denying that ability. We should celebrate our individuality, our gender responsibilities, our strong points – no matter what. But it doesn’t mean we aren’t equal in the ability to be human – we just have different EQUAL roles in the responsibility of the Universe, our lives, our people, children, plants and animals – all Earthlings have a reason to be here. All Earthlings have a role in the world, some of us know this role and others of us struggle to find our purpose. But what our purpose is not, is to degrade, belittle, or detract others from their journey.
I’ve watched Jack Ass and I wonder what influence that may have had on today’s young kids. When we were growing up, if we saw someone (young or old) fall over or hurt themselves or if they failed at something like a driver’s licence or baking a cake – we didn’t laugh and point at them and shout “Loser”. We sat down with them, put an arm around their shoulders, and told them that they would be all right and be able to do this again. We would help them, pick them up, dust them off, and push them forward again, not nail spikes of spite into their very soul to keep them pinned to the lowest low.
So I wonder what has happened to us all. I look rather sadly around me when I see more and more women with guns standing next to a Giraffe, Elephant, or Lion they “hunted” with an AK47, and I’m ashamed. Children and babies burnt, tortured,starved, ignored, and suffering, our elderly abused and forgotten to rot in unacceptable conditions, animals tortured and used for sick individual’s pleasure. But most disturbing of all is that it is a woman at the end of those appalling acts, more and more.
So I beg of us all as women to take back what is ours, our mystery, our caring, our nurturing and saving of the world. We are women. Our power lies in our ability to calm, talk, bring peace, negotiate, and love. Please help me bring our job-description back into the light, it’s who we are, it’s what we were made to do – I don’t want to fall into the hole of what everyone else is doing or hardening up for – if we do this we will crack and fall into a squidzillion pieces never to be a whole again. Am I living in the hope of a Utopia? Please say it isn’t so….
© Kait King, 2015
