Katrina Kaye – Fevers of the Mind

After the Wedding

Gardenia petals
tossed off the balcony,
only to be crushed
under the heels of black boots.

One more opportunity
to show the difference
between white and ruin,
and yet when the bomb drops
we find ourselves
creeping toward windows
in hopes of a better view
to ease the curiosity
panting on our tongues.

My body is not
so svelte to allow such
proposals to go unnoticed.
I still feel every
convulsion in my head
sulking into my heart
bruised with dreams of
falling teeth and baby’s breath.

I am not hungry anymore,
nor do I crave the sugar
I used to savor.

I am curled into myself
but feel no anger or madness,
just the repeated pitter patter
of the drops from window;
a constant reminder
that on this side of the world
mold consumes in darkness.

Hatch

I am dripping,
bent over shell and broken back.

A flutter of promises,

hopes I was never given but
manifested in my spine just the same,

emerge and take shape.

I am told what I have formed

is somehow
good enough.

It is not
good enough.

I desire the simplicity;
I want so much less
than what I have become.

I never asked for these wings.

Explosion

I told him
we wouldn’t fizzle;

we wouldn’t fade or
fall apart in the
expansion of the silence
of empty space.
There was too much passion,
too little self control.

I remember the way
your body shook.
I watched how you
held your arm
to your side as through
trying to confine
combustion.

I knew when the end
came we would explode.

I wasn’t wrong.

Wolfpack Contributor: Katrina Kaye

Poetry by Katrina Kaye : “Danea” “Dulcinea” “Continuance”

You are the drops of summer rain shimmered gold on skin. You are the child too young for my bitter heart, my yellow bird, the last bloom of August. I knew I was in love with you after the first time I heard you laugh in your sleep. Every song is a melody shaped by your lips. The same lips that brush my forehead when I curl to by side. The same lips that shot an arrow at my back as I walked away. I was too proud to turn around. Your laugh will always be one of my favorite things. Dulcinea "Those who have been told the truth should not be taken for those who have been scorned." The sound of my name fell from your crooked lips. Seemingly foreign, yet easily interwoven into ringlets framing my perception. You speak each syllable sunshine mixed with the awkwardness of the moon reflecting brilliance no matter the cadence. For a fleeting moment, in the melody of the occasion, I too am fooled. I see myself birthed from clam shell, goddess gripping bow and arrow, my words woven into golden strings. You tricked me. It isn't just your sycophantic words and slips of tongue. It is in the way I see my reflection, the shine of myself mirrored in your clouded eyes, a strange smile readily returned. The name you give me, a gift, more beautiful than I can ever be. Continuance You didn't leave a note, but two days before you killed yourself you gave me your grandmother's watch, told me you never wore the dented heirloom and it didn't fit your slim wrists, said, it would look better on me. When I pointed out that it no longer worked, you shrugged and said simply, "time is a silly thing." You looked in the mirror before you did it. You cut off all your hair in misshapen awkward chunks, some spots clean to your scalp. Your mother decided on the closed casket. At your funeral I stand consumed by the list of things I didn't know about you, overwhelmed by the uselessness of words and the futility of remorse, devastated by the continuance of the ordinary.

Category: Katrina Kaye

Poetry from Katrina Kaye aka Iron & Sulfur

Poetry by Katrina Kaye : “Danea” “Dulcinea” “Continuance”