September

Warrior

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

There is a problem
with becoming a warrior;

a sense of posture and
responsibility once
established is near
impossible to slouch.

Despite the tattoos,
scars, and harsh vocabulary
there are grenades
crumbling in my chest.

The child sacrificed
is hollering
through bones,
rattling through
circulation.

I carved a line that
cannot be uncrossed.

This shield can’t be dropped
for fear of an exposed vein.
My bow ever present
for fear of an empty hand.

The lullabies I forever
hummed by heart have
turned too sweet
to pass through these split lips.

It has been years
since the perfection of childhood,

yet I still curl like innocence
into the corners of my bed,
lying still so as not to be found.

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

Wine Glass

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I position
his arms around
my body
so they hold me
like you used to
when we wedged
into the twin bed
in your basement studio
all those years ago.
I needed only to have
you beside me again,
to cure the cramp
in my gut and the crackle
in my throat with the comfort
of warm body and perfect embrace.

You are gone,
so I use him.

A restless boy with too
much to prove, who has your
height but not your eyes,
who makes me laugh like you
once did and likes to watch
me when I am looking away
so close to your sideways glance.

I shatter myself into him.
Being useless in this skin,
I sought the soul beneath.

It only broke
my heart a little
when he left,
no more than a wine glass
forgotten on the floor
crushed under the klutz
of an early morning
stumble toward bath.

“Wine Glass” is previously published in September (2014).

Untethered

/ Katrina Kaye / 2 Comments

Katrina Kaye

I am not formed in clay,
malleable to your touch.
You attempt to carve a statue,
a lover, you receive only ash.

I am not the idea you hold of me.
If we were close enough to touch
you would know my scales,
feel the goose flesh prickle your palm,
taste the burn on ready tongue.

I am not the stone set to sculpt;
the moment you hoped to freeze.

I soured, mildewed, rotted in the rain
and warped in the afternoon heat.
The thin paradise you formed
for us is mud never kilned.

It yields under thumbs.

Migratory wings stretch in foreign ways.
How can you say you love the arch of my neck,
when you’ve yet to see it sway loose against collar bone?

When I only now raise my head to
yield against curved grin?

Despite the lines around
my eyes, I have never
been looking for anything
or anyone.

Despite the nails
pierced through my feet,
I only want to soar
untethered.

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