You are the counterbalance to my mischievous soul.
Providing direction to a wounder-er unsure of where she'll go.

You have become countless breath taking destinations;
Appealing to my wanderlust
pulling from my weary soul
a trust

I would hesitate to think existed,
your presence and persistence
are exceptional,
my perceptions shifted.

Your grin is a force to be reckoned with.
I gave you my will and you bent it.
I gave you my good sense
and you spent it.

Admit it,
you admire my wit,
even when driven to wits end,
we co-exist in perfect contradiction
amending every bit I'm missing.

And when when I whispered we were meant to be,
I meant it.

Somehow, I couldn't speak. Her smile opened the door every morning.
But this morning, it was her heart. That beating temple she sealed way
in a steel envelope, unready for adjustments, unwilling. But it was I,
who opened the mailbox with gentleness, simpleness. She gave in.

It was a swing, by the riverbank, where the lost creatures roamed.
We sat, and talked as if there was no world around us. Just hope,
crisp, in the wind, like dandelion hair. The racing water, running senseless,
up the shore. I saw a moment in her nourishing grin. A heaven without

clouds. A shoeless retreat, where her hand and mine were magnets.
This was love, unexplained. A portrait of fire, framed with white roses,
and the smell of aged wine. The minutes silently added more
to us. An uncharted evolution, of how things begin and where they go

when they end. It was reality that pulled her hand within a reachable
reach. It was her freedom that she as willing to pay for, that bought
these miles between us. It was a sudden **** that brought me back
into this quiet life, this tainted demise of a broken light. It was funny,

seeing her,     again.

balter aimlessly
let's dance infamously
no rest in the room for eternal minutes
oh just spin us
counting the rhythm on our extra digits
this movement is more like fidgeting
moonwalking with iridecent souls
the feet kick and squirm and meet the knee
a bend of the neck, of the elbow
until you're hands meet me
in the middle
the fidget winds to a fiddle,
sudden like we're syncing
a drift saved from break by interlocking steps unperformed
together the dance, never grew worn,
although it's nothing less, it's nothing more

© 2015 Kate Volk

Do you remember that time?
My family has a home video of it.
It was my birthday,
and we were little kids,
and there's this moment in it
where we are standing quietly -
Staring at each other
Awkwardly.
You smile and giggle,
and I smile too,
but only a little,
because I'm trying to be still.

When I see it, it's like walking into a time portal.

I remember what I'd said to you.
I remember how I'd felt:
Like everything was moving too fast,
so I asked you for some help.

I said,
"Just stand here a minute. Don't move.
Let's just stand here for a second."

And you did.
And there it is!
Us standing awkwardly right in the midst
of chaotic childhood revelry -but removed from it.

We're like two young souls frozen
forever in a moment that made no sense,
and when I see it,
I long for that first loss of innocence.

Light fades and every sun ray disintegrates
Into gray scale, pays tribute
To faithless hope or a hopeless faith
And I’m losing myself
Like clouds drop rain.
Not a tear shed for the parts they throw away,
Lying all my shadows across the things they say,
Until I’m hallow,
And I feel nothing
But this soft familiar thrumming,
It’s you calling
It’s always knowing when I have no home,
When I have gone insane,
That I can live in the way you say my name.
You watch me, lift me off my toes
Learn the things nobody knows
Chose the things nobody chose
Gather all my pain in your strong arms
Whisper your happy my soul touched yours and that
I’m altogether more than this compilation of scars.
No matter how far I fall
Into dark
No matter how much life
Costs
I swear I see you.
And when I feel small under skies full of stars,
I feel found , tucked under your arm.
I feel safe under your gaze
And I can spend days in your space,
Saying everything,
Saying nothing,
At a comfortable distance,
In the thrill when we’re touching.
And your my best friend I’ve always loved
To keep loving.
Everything changes,
But this familiar thrumming

We meet and I tremble.
Life shifts and I fit
Perfectly aginst your chest.
You said beautiful things
like lets

And I have never heard things
like the things you said,
in your finger tips.

I trip
and I fall to hard
under sharp stars.
Become aware i'm to far under high bars.

So hate me freely
and while i'm broken
I am not needy
needing is for those who think
beyond brething

I feel to far beyond saving,
fingers tremble
life shifting
I'm shaking
praying to empty space
for day to brake

I am faking,
faigning,
saying to much.
Saying nothing not enough,
thinking, thinking thinging

For me to forget ,
for my own sake
that I loved our lust
the magic the star dust.

the smell of musk and
brown eyes
drowned in rememberance
of soft sigh
the lies laced in
each kiss
and unspoken promises

I'm haunted
by falling stars
by falling stars
put out by an ocean of fears

taste of dissapointent
the falling of tears .

I feel like drowning and counting
on stars to drop
wishing on things
that will let me down
like hope
like hoping to drown.

letting my sarrow hold me
in tight grip
untill tomorrow.
the sun is the only star
I should have clung too,
you were the only one
you are every one
I have ever come undone too.

How do you describe it? The feeling you get deep down inside yourself when your looking down at her? When you hold her frail hand in yours and grasp it as if you could lend some stability to her fragile mortality. When you see her and see everything that escapes those around you.
You see yourself in her, in her dimming eyes because when she is gone she takes a part of you with her. You feel responsible for the wrinkles around that shade of somber blue because you know the exact way she squints a little when she’s laughing; when she smiles. You know the way she gathers her anxious feelings in the crease between her brows. You see all your childhood, all your life and love and existence mapped out on her aged skin like a map to the parts of yourself you could never quite find, never quite understand. You see the scar on the tip of her index finger where she prodded herself on the tip of a seam ripper while mending your torn heart. You are perceptive to the way she has shrunk under the weight of all of her disappointments and hopelessness’ in equal parts with your own and you wonder how, in the perfect silence interrupted only by her shallow breaths, you will ever see anything else. You begin to wonder how you will ever find yourself. And you shudder when her stare focuses in and out like her consciousness, like her memories giving you glimpses of the things being torn from you. Like a phantom limb a place in your chest aches where things once were only to discover empty space a lack of movement when you try to use it. I see anger at her life, at her death, I see loneliness and hopelessness, I see laughter and tears, confusion and purposelessness, I see abandonment and acceptance, I see vulgarity and patience,
I blink
And see only the greatest of absence I have ever known,
And I remain where I am with my eyes clinched closed
Afraid  only to see what I can’t.