Katrina Kaye
She stopped playing the cello.
She can no longer
spread her legs wide enough,
not for that long.
Can’t remember
how that melody
licked from spidery fingers,
or how the notes
sprung, then yawned loudly
across any empty room.
She can’t remember how she did it.
“Anymore” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).
Katrina Kaye
I hung your shadow outside my window,
so hopefully you would come to retrieve it.
I was always more your Wendy
than your mermaid.
My scales never stuck to your skin
and my name easily escaped your mind,
leaving me to wonder
if you ever really knew me.
I gave you my thimble too soon,
a clever kiss and nothing more,
too eager for the fondness of a new boy.
I was more your Wendy than your fairy friend.
My hands too soft for metal work,
my body too large for just one emotion.
But you,
you were always my Peter.
Cock-sure, congratulating your cleverness,
miss minded and forgetful
Your attentions waver,
but your affection your loyalty
was as stubborn as a child’s lower lip.
You stayed up all night in front of my door
hand on your dagger, spark in your eye
knowing from the curl of smoke
mischief was about.
But I never asked you to fight my battles.
You never had to win me;
I was always yours.
After all, it was the kiss
you left on my chest that saved my life.
I want to be your fierce friend,
your clever cousin,
dance with you on high rocks,
without fear of falling.
Listen to your first laugh
like a child watching soap bubbles pop.
Let that laugh linger
on your breath for eternity,
even if it means leaving you
to your own adventures.
Too many years have passed.
You have forgotten me.
Left me sitting beside
a window in my new dress.
And I,
I have forgotten how to fly.
I became a woman
two days before every other girl.
I no longer listen for your crow.
You have become nothing
more than dust on old toys.
I grew up despite my childish promises.
This woman’s voice no longer knows
how to speak to such a boy.
But I’ll still think of you
in that place between sleeping and awake,
where we still remember dreaming.
Your shadow waits upon window sill.
Come,
reclaim it,
before returning to
your wandering island,
trailing
my childhood
and best intentions
in a shimmering wake.
“After You Left” is previously published in Leaves of Ink (2013), They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore (2011), and September (2014).
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Katrina Kaye
It feels like Friday,
but it has really only just begun.
And it’s gonna get worse.
There are going to be days
when you will scream at the walls,
when you will lie on the cold tile of bathroom floors
begging for the world to shrug from its atlas.
There are going to be nights so pitch
your face will ripple rage
and you will plead the moon for sacrifice,
to take all that you are.
But the moon won’t.
Precious lives will rip untimely from your arms
leaving you grasping at sunflowers in November.
More painful though,
are the ones you leave behind.
Right now,
you think you can save the world,
repair the cracks they carved into themselves,
You believe you have the thread to mend the lost
like broken kites and make them fly,
but one day you’ll realize
the only person you can save is yourself.
And you will,
you’ll save yourself.
You’re going to walk out of the darkest caverns
on sturdy feet without a guide,
and you’re going to leave behind the insects;
the ones who spun sticky webs of regret.
They will not have you.
Child,
you will not always be this angry.
The fists you pump against the night sky will tire.
You will realize
you have nothing to prove.
You will emerge from the storm,
though it may leave you gasping,
beaten, clinging,
you will survive,
and panting on the shore of battered beach
you will rise.
Mingled in the moments of bleak,
emerge utter joy and peace.
You will wake up beside it on a September morning,
and spend the night laughing
and singing with it around bonfires.
You’ll have lovers and friends
and fleeting moment when you feel truly alive
and it will be worth it.
You will know contentment.
Your jeans may still have holes in the knees,
and you will continue to feel too much
and give too much of yourself.
There will be plenty of moments when
you will still pray for the eventual apocalypse.
But evolution does have a course.
You’ll quit smoking,
several times.
You’ll form creases around your lips
and webs around your eyes,
some from laughter,
others from grimace.
Wisdom will come in the form of clever phrases,
and patience will embed itself into your heart.
You don’t know what it means
to truly love another person right now,
but you will,
and someday you will also know how to give that love freely, without bounds.
And yes, darlin’,
though it may take you kicking and screaming,
you will shed this adolescent skin,
you will grow up.
It may be scary at first,
but you will realize, it’s alright.
There is a person you are meant to be.
One day the scars will heal
and you will replace them with garlands of orange daisies.
There is gonna be someone who thinks the heavens of you
for nothing more than exactly what you are,
the person you came to be.
One day,
you will stand solitary in the barren desert
but no longer feel alone.
One day
you will look in the mirror and accept your smile,
recite poetry instead of curse words,
find the beauty of tattered dandelions
and the pure tragedy of perfection.
You will no longer be ashamed of your reflection.
One day, you will stop hating yourself.
It’s gonna take a while,
so hold on;
You will get there.
“A Letter to Myself at 16” is previously published in September (2014).
Chasing Rabbits 
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