Kate Louise: Favorites

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Blizzard

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Bruce Mackintosh

Blizzard

Packed into
holiday traffic
on Christmas Eve,
I recall a story
told by my mother
of a snow blown pass
in the Rockies
near Estes Park
and the searing glow
of cougar eyes
just beyond
the high beams

her rear wheels whined
the engine sputtered
and the snow
kept falling

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

The door inside my head

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Christiane Deinhard

The door inside my head

When the past calls let it go to voicemail
But I want to start talking.
I want to talk about my attempt to turn the page.
turn the ******* page
TURN IT

A page of my life
it almost ruined all following chapters.

To make one thing clear in the beginning - I really don't want to you to pity me. I do not even want to ask for sympathy. I am writing this because I feel like I have to. Because it will allow me to turn the page completely and close this chapter forever.

I was lying in his bed
anxious, scared
but prepared.
It has always been the same
I smiled but felt shame
while he was the one to blame.

So my spirit left this bed
it was easy
stumbling to the inside of my head.

The world inside there is beautiful, colourful, calm and peaceful.
I am free, my own self and my own director while there is pain and horror outside.*

My body would stay
on the other side
it would go another way,
on a different ride.

But that was fine,
my body was strong
could handle the crime
even though it was wrong.

my mind was focused on running
away - this is not where you belong
get through that door!!

Something was different today.
Something didn't work.
The door wouldn't open all the way.
I could feel him smirk.

The door wouldn't open.
I heard my body cry
it was aching and stopped copin'
it wanted me back, asking the question why

Didn't it know that returning wasn't an option for me?
stay brave as before, just be brave and wait for it to be over
let your mind stay free!

My body grabbed my mind
dragged it back to reality.
Just like pressing rewind.
Right into where I didn't want to be.

made me look at it, made me pay attention to it and it made me feel him

He didn't care.
He never did.
But normally I didn't either.
This time i felt like ****.
I was in pain.

All I felt was hate and shame
Hate towards myself
towards that man that was to blame.

*I am so ashamed of myself because I never bothered about what my body was going through. Now I am convinced that I will never open it again. I will never let anyone give me a reason to do so. It has to stop

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Every word I write is already known

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Kyle Wheaton

Every word I write is already known

Every word I write is already known because these are the lines of your body.
Images of what you could be, outlines of what you have been,
Traced in chalk around pieces of paper all scattered on my floor.
You are every tree in this forest and at night when I’m here alone,
When it’s all breathing and no sleep, I feel saplings of you around me.
Every word I write is already known because these are the lines of your body,
And now my songs of you are heard at last.

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Feeler

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Liana Vazquez

Feeler

There were words wilting on his tongue
and I could smell them from across
the bed, between the sheets —
wrapping his vowels between my thighs
and smoldering in every consonant.
I could not breathe for I was gulping
every muted word, thought, image;
his choking lips depicting dying needs.

And I began to soak the mattress,
screaming into pillows while the sun
set between our waists —
darkening my curves and shading his face.

I no longer smelled him in the quiet,
no longer reached for static.

                     Instead I kneaded his language
             into my taste; until I spoke
         for him.

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Jezebel

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Liana Vazquez

Jezebel

She bit her lip, blood let in her gums,
on the picket fence, staining white houses
with her sinful finger tips

(Said stars weren’t meant to shine but burn)

I watched her chew
Gnaw on her skin until her veins shown
in her scar tissue — not deep enough to shadow;
but visible like the bones that poked through
her buttoned dress

She would unbutton, tear and ruin
the tethers that held her upright
Keep her body **** for boys to
touch and gamble upon

I watched her feed off her dead skin,
hear her whisper in the dark,
remember her cries when I forgot how to feel,
and always think she is she, burning above
dim-lit strangers in the night of a car

*(The moon mourns over Jezebel, the lone lost star)

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

The addict

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Liana Vazquez

The addict

A bit of coke,
little drag of smoke,
nothing suits me
like the
sip of gin
trickling down

               your lips

I’m hoping for an ashtray,
a pinch of crystal on
my wrists to feed
these veins
from a dehydrated paroxysm

Never settle for a
sober embrace or
the scent of your

             showered skin

But I’ll take the drug,
the need
             (a scar)

to burn naked purity
if it means I’ll
always be gone

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

She is my luna, the dying night

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Liana Vazquez

She is my luna, the dying night

She is my luna, the dying night —
writhing her silver beads around my red wrists.
I heard her heart sing, and seldom scream
when shadows burdened my lips clean, softly.

I wait for her at twilight with my
body undone, unfolded, transient; so her
midnight fondles turn my head towards the sun.
I awake with the weight of her mouth kissing
me, cautiously; and take her taste with
when I am hollow.

She avoids me in the day and smothers me
before dawn breaks, and I let her swoon on
the gapes of my curves ‘til there’s
no breath left in the day.

She is my luna, and I won’t give her pain away.

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

After My Body

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Kathleen Mavourneen

After My Body

The sidewalk granulated so,
yellow from the streetlight though it's not quite dark

it's difficult to set your feet down normally if you look at them
while you do it
I can't watch my body while I use it, like a dancer
it's easier just to feel

stand in the wind although the shelter is empty
not sure why
I don't ponder my actions while I take them, like a philosopher
it's easier not to think

cigarette burns quickly, the wind pushing it down
before I can pull it
and for awhile I forget about it while I watch it
unraveling ring by ring in bursts
against a sidewalk now blurred with inattention
eyes focus on one plane like a camera

I read that if you look at horizontal stripes with your left eye
and vertical stripes with your right, then you will perceive a grid
our brains lie
and take shortcuts

the heart and the liver work hard no matter what
but they're just along for the ride

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Tomato Soup

Sep 2012 Kate Louise

Kate Browning

Tomato Soup

He crinkled the daily
paper and thought out
loud, "You're my
best friend."

She scuffed her
kitten heels, prodding
for more. Far inside she
told herself to take it lightly.

He knew she knew
that he knew it was
temporary. Acting as if
she made him happy.

She sunk deep in
the velvet green
couch. Cons and pros
of being the leaver or the left.

He stared past Valentine
cards and the spot on
the carpet, where they
laughed and spilled tomato soup.

Their faces drooped and became
that soup. Sodium and protein
soaking into the ground
every which-way.

She resided and sat
up out of their yard-sale
bought couch. She set her
mind on staying by his side.

He toppled over on
the yard tools he never
touched. Now next to his
side was the Earth's crust.

She was left in the air
and he laid in muck.
His voice played over in her
head, "You're my best friend."

— The End —