ka-tet-writes

[ka-tet-writes]

I hear them call my name

Whispers, murmurs in indistinct conversations

Taken off guard

Alert every time

Hyper vigilant, I hear them call others too

Who are they?

I try to remember the names

But they’re lost to the background

Is it me or my past that’s haunted?

- E.C

[ka-tet-writes]

Something a bit different.

Made a zine

[ka-tet-writes]

Freedom isn't enough. What I crave remains nameless, waiting to be excavated in the uncharted realms of the soul.

[ka-tet-writes]

Because you deserve to get back just as much of the love you pour into the world.

k.b. // you do

[ka-tet-writes]

Intense moon exposed, evening engulf my world, cascade in silent dark, watchful of tender absence.

Refrigerator Poetry

- E.C

[ka-tet-writes]

Reminder

-

I love you,

Even when the wind is blowing.

When the thunder is rolling.

When the sky seems like it might

Cave in above us.

You're constant.

The ever present reminder

That every storm must pass.

And while the worst storms leave

Carnage that shakes our roots-

I think of you.

With your silly socks

Beneath black boots.

And I smile.

I really,

Really

Smile.

x

[ka-tet-writes]

It is so much safer not to feel, not to let the world touch me.

Sylvia Plath

[ka-tet-writes]

And so I blamed you, not so much for the man you were, but for not being the man I wished you could have been.

To Dad

- E.C

[ka-tet-writes]

Growing pains

You did not Rise from the ashes; You rebuilt yourself from the untouched Roots reaching Deepest to your core.

All that you are Is all that you were, Is all that deserves Love, As self-evident as sunshine and rain; You feed your soul The same.

In darkness, in light; in death and life.

Yes, you changed.

Yet Nothing of importance was lost, Just a pretty facade. You can rebuild That, if you want, For the tourists and the Spectators;

Those who will run Whenever their thought of you goes up In Flames.

Those who will dub you 'Stranger', Once you have silenced the voice in the Mirror.

Such Loss Doesn't ache As much.

A stretch, and a puff.

Growing pains, while your roots reach Deeper down To have your core Embraced,

As all that stems from this will remain As you are — eternal.

--- 6-3-2024, M.A. Tempels ©

[ka-tet-writes]

Safety.

It feels like a bitter joke. Now that I have a resting place for my heart, my soul, my mind and my body, it chooses now to make this trauma, this sickness known. Please, give me respite. Let me sink into the shelter and wait out the storm.

Let it figure itself out on its own.

[ka-tet-writes]

[ka-tet-writes]

But you see, there is a graveyard in my mouth filled with words that have died.

Emily Palermo

[ka-tet-writes]

I’ve been writing in my sleep again

What dark thoughts grace these pages

What haunted dreams are locked so deep

That I must not be conscious to admit them?

What, then, does it mean when my mind stops but my hands keep writing,

As though possessed by some unseen, unknown soul?

What, then, does it mean if that soul is me? Unseen, unknown, for decades.

And decades longer it will be.

For I am not ready to emerge.

- E.C

[ka-tet-writes]

grasp

[ka-tet-writes]

Find me

I’m lost to my mind

Broken pieces of memory

Scattered like landmarks on a

map to a place that’s unfamiliar.

Please find me.

I want to go home.

- E.C

[ka-tet-writes]

The intervals of day

Nighttime punctuate-

s with dreams,

Visions of other worlds

Brief and unexplained

Or vast, epic, whole lifetimes

Littering our brainwaves

Until we wake

From groggy slumber

Back to day.

- E.C

[ka-tet-writes]

My brain is full but so so empty

Like the cluttered house of a man long dead

- E.C