Poet

Love and Honey

/ Katrina Kaye / Leave a comment

Katrina Kaye

I have grown tired of dreams,
the way they toss me through the night.

Perhaps there is not enough sugar in my diet.

Holy knows there is not enough caffeine
in a single cup to keep me from flailing.

I have only been hungry once in my life.
I have only turned animal during a solitary full moon.

This life is not what I expected.

There are footprints forming in the absence of warm bodies,
but no flesh covers these sun bleached bones.

I have no fear of the skeletons and the clicking of their heels.

If it is just a matter of hunger, would this heart
and all its dried red fruit be bitter to the taste?

I wonder sometimes about the difference between
love and honey, how only one holds the ability to survive.

“Love and Honey” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012 and Gravel Literary Magazine.

Words

/ Katrina Kaye / 1 Comment

Katrina Kaye

I do not use my words
like stringed instruments.

They are not plucked
with such distinction.
They are tossed about,
careless as September,

left to crumble under
the heels of black boots,
graying with wear.

Every word is a burden,
a yellowed fleece wrapped
around shoulders crumbling backbone.

Promises undelivered at front door,
lies folded across the lap at dinner table,
a late night seduction no one hears.

I drown in conversation.

How many feet can shove between lips
before the chips and cracks run too deep;
before there is nothing left to repair?

Do I dare attempt
to crush the shells
stacked between teeth?

Do I dare attempt
to mend stretched threads
with the truth hidden in my gut?

Or shall I wait until the tide of time
takes my words from me?

“Words” is previously published in September (2014).

Recovery

/ Katrina Kaye / 2 Comments

Katrina Kaye

This is a moment in
the throes of recovery.

In an attempt to mend,

to collect crushed shells
left to rot on the beach
and form them back together,

to recreate something whole,

I creep on hands and knees across
tousled bed sheets
to where you sit reading a book

and lie my head on your body,
purring into the flesh of your thigh
before sickness reclaims me.

Before I regress,

revert,

relapse,

take it

all

back

in.

In only minutes,
the tide will drag me into
the ocean of broken back.

The heave of stomach
will turn me from your scent.

The blistered,

drained,

bandaged,

will bubble under your supple touch.

But for this moment,

I rest my head upon the circuitry of your body,
listen to your voice read of rabbits and waterships,
your thumb strokes the bone of my cheek,

and count each lick of my body’s fall
and rise.

“Recovery” is previously published in Catching Calliope Vol 2, 2014 and my verse…(2014)..