Grief

Son

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I won’t lie and say there wasn’t
relief in the coming of blood.

My mind was still unsettled
when your soul fled my body.

Birds scattering from a telephone wire.
Fast. Determined.

You were in such a hurry,
no time to wait for my resolve.

They sucked you out.
Scraped you off insides,

metal to flesh,
taking what you left.

Never knew I could feel so deserted.

Amazing how something so consuming
could be gone completely, without a trace.

Every now and again
I feel the familiar ache

inside my body,
the cramp and kick of a liberated soul.

And I wonder
who you could have been.

“Son” is previously published in The Fall of the Sparrow (2014).

Ordinary Grief

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

“How does one commemorate the ordinary?”
~Sherman Alexie
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

flowers are a start
even if they are cut
even if they
too
will die

after all
we do not want our grief
to outlast its usefulness
the way trinkets and mementos
so often do

grief will outlast
the flowers

but they will serve as
a reminder
the cycle continues
there is always
something changing
in our hearts

from decay
a newness can arise
with love
forgiveness
passing of time

shells soften
by the turn of tides
diamonds eventually
crumble to sand

grief shouldn’t
last forever

take time
commemorate this grief
this ordinary
this everyday
but don’t ask it to remain

like the most resilient of roses
grief too will shed its pedals
and lose its glamour

grief will return to earth

it will erode like fallen leafs
like skin and bones
like love
and
in time
it will be forgotten

“Ordinary Grief” is previously published in Anti-Heroin Chic, December 2018.

Shed

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

When I shaved
the skin bloody
on each part of

my body you
ever touched
and the flakes

of dead cells
accumulated,

gathering upon
each other with
the stroke of
worn green towel,

leaving skin
raw and rough,

tender red but
still intact,

that is when
I knew

only time would
shed you.

“Shed” is previously published in To Anyone Who Has Ever Loved a Writer (2014).