“We never really learned how to survive off of more than each other”

Katrina Kaye Your world is absent of light. Dust reflected in rare brightness only to disappear behind western vista. Enveloped in gloom, you watch from thick shadows the world succumbing to the dim, you fade in the dusk. If I promise to follow you into the night, take your path away from the sun and wrap myself in your darkness,

Struggling with death, the speaker finds strength and resilience.

Katrina Kaye I’ve never been good at accepting the wear and tear of things: clothing books people. I always thought the longer you had something, the more valuable it became. It is why I am a sucke…

Struggling with death, the speaker finds strength and resilience.

Katrina Kaye I am elegant in surf: a better swimmer than most land bound creatures, resistant to regain straight legged pose. You can tell by the arch of my back I can keep afloat after the moon ri…

Katrina Kaye On this Saturday night, some of us havecurled our toes in sand, tried to catch flieswith chopsticks, counted stars. Some of ushave found some form of peace, but we never really learned…

Katrina Kaye when you get older, the words go. they slip, scatter, strip from pen and page stick in mouth, in throat, in mind. they float, flimsy as silk ribbons, and frustrate the mind. when you g…

Katrina Kaye is the salty tongue of the ocean against my back. All it is, is stick on skin, splash on hands, hair. A taste in the back of my throat. All it is, is water and sand, debris in patterns…

Katrina Kaye We are porcelain dolls cracked on floorboards. White socks and red ribbons. Marble eyes vacantly comprehending how we ended up in pieces on linoleum. Arms distort unable to grasp, legs…

Katrina Kaye I move the stones, one by one, to build this place. Dark, yet safe and warm, your cave forms in my hands. I place you there, whisper soft words to soothe, tell stories to comfort. I kn…

Katrina Kaye It was an accident. I was not a broken woman the day you left. I still had the strength to carry every remnant of our war toward pyre. But as I dragged your scent from my house, dress snagged on the shield you left in your stead, held me down, pulled me into hot flames, trapped me, and I knew as soon as the soft fabric of dress bloomed with orange teeth, you had not truly let me go. You never intended me to live without you. "Dido" is previously published in Spillwords (2023).

Katrina Kaye There is a coyote smeared across the road; patchy fur in a heap, blood pools around mangled corpse. This is on a highway in Texas. The truck is on its side three miles from McLean. I t…

Katrina Kaye he changed my name, mother he painted my hair red and left my skin hidden from childish strokes of sun for three months I hid in back rooms knowing full well the sun was shinning I fou…

Katrina Kaye   In the days of hunger strikesand promises made too easily,I wanted the simplicity of touchand your chest to support my fears. It’s been years since I scraped feetagainst white s…