Katrina Kaye

Melquiades and Loretta

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

He outlived her by twenty-three years,
yet they remain nestled together in the earth.

I can’t help but wonder if he spent
those years alone, stuck in a daughter’s
kitchen with obnoxious grandchildren
and great-grandchildren weaving around
his knobbed knees and kitchen table.

I wonder if he had other lovers,
later in life, the kind that meet late
at movies or intertwine hands on park
benches, secret affairs he kept from
controlling daughter.

Did he tell Loretta his secrets?
Ask her for forgiveness?
Come to grey marker after Sunday mass
to confess the sins he held in his heart?

Did he talk about her on the last days,
walk an 84-year-old crooked gait,
mistake the silhouette of his daughter
over the kitchen sink as long
departed wife?

Did he call her her mother’s name
without even realizing the mistake
and did he wake to a daughter’s sharp glance
before walking back to the porch to slump
on front bench in final silence?

“Melquiades and Loretta” is previously published in Graveyard Collection (2015).

Bird

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I would love
to catch you
for a moment,

like an
inconsequential lie,
a fallen bird
I can teach again to fly,

and when you are
basking in your own sun,
send me a postcard
of the life you’ve won.

With scrawled note
telling me
you don’t need me anymore.

With scrawled signature
saying
Thank you.

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

A Letter to Myself at 16

/ Katrina Kaye / 1 Comment

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).