Poetry I need to go away for a while…

I know she can still skip I know she can run yet If I can just write it If I can just say it again The copyright is mine (but that should be a given). You can ask me anything, but I'm an introvert, so I'll answer as I please. If you message me and you're mean, understand I have a black belt in ignoring people and don't be creepy. I'm attracted to poetry, not you

[katrinnac]

The redwoods come to me as mist

Damp and astoundingly quiet

Sipping fog.

Their mouths faintly smell of oranges

Αs I rise in their presence

Αll the chatter in my head sloughs off.

Merely a layer of skin from a long illness.

I move to them, as I must, shushed

A tiptoeing animal

Straight and tall, I am

They invite fog to me as fog they drink

And I realize the word fog has never described fog

The word redwood lays at its base, covered in the spongy ground of millions of needles

This thing called human is monstrously wordy

That words become — what?

If I were a tree, I think

I wouldn’t have to be human

If I were a tree, I know

I wouldn’t recognize country

If I were a tree.

Βut I’m not

The sloughed off chatter always comes back

And what am I to do?

My country is an asshole

Is your country, too?

My country always has been

They used to rhetoric it out

Words flung and organized thus

To SOUND as if we’re not

We humans, monstrously wordy

But never say it,

The truth

The word human was lost

Before these redwoods were babies

But I get what I am here

Οr what I would be

Or could be

Long to be

I could word it, but the wording would make the knowing cheap

I am loss

Disease

I am weeping

I am worry, fret and rage

I am cheap

The word human doesn’t describe us in the least

/katrinnac

[katrinnac]

I’ve been absent

Sitting on roads of hot tar

Washing in winter rain

The wind breaking through fibers of my coat

Of Cloth, not at all suited for rain

Soft as horse’s nose

And I imagined I suffer greatly

The cars were unkind

The rain wet my hair and jeans

Which stuck to me, and stiffened like death,

Already blue

There were so many people yelling

The noise and cold were unbearable

And I wondered outside my mind

Watching their irritation, at what?

I wondered, as I chose to lay still on the street

Why is it I can’t make my mind take me elsewhere

I can go ever so many places, yet there’s the road

Willfully refusing to be dismissed

There the rain that I had already asked to leave

There, the people, that I never invited in

I have so little within my control

I should get up, I suppose

But it’s the one thing I can choose

And I haven’t finished thinking this through

Why is it, the world won’t reorganize at will?

And if it won’t,

Why is it people keep telling me I can choose

-

/katrinnac

[katrinnac]

The Stranger

I wish I were tiny A particle of dust That floats at will on wind Imperceptible, veiled So maybe, just maybe I could find you again

Where can you be, brother Because you can’t be gone Some spark of that smile I managed to create A bit of gray-blue eyes A whisper of you running A hint of you teasing Who hid spiders on strings To make me scream in fright

It has been a long time My broken, big brother Who could not keep going Who buckled under life I cannot figure out How you were the weakest When I looked up to you

I wish I were tiny A particle of dust So maybe, just maybe I could find you again Finally be relieved To see no awful fear But just the smile still there

But I wonder sometimes Would I even know you Even if you were next door If you escaped somehow To that better world Would I recognize you Without fear, anger that Zipped you in that black bag Maybe, but maybe not So I will hope you well Stranger, once my brother Hope I never see you The way I saw you then

@katrinnac

[katrinnac]

Family portrait

[katrinnac]

The poem I live in

[katrinnac]

They really hate women this much

They really hate black people this much

The founding fathers can relate

[katrinnac]

I had two digestifs

I swimming I’m gone

I wrote 50 pages of MY book

Mine

I can see the whole book

Laid out perfect

Saleability ranking = not the worst thing I’ve read

Someone I know read 4 pages

Said my hook was good

My pages were well written

I’m so spinny inside

Today I looked a dead fish in the eye

It didn’t really look back

It isn’t anything but I feel brave

Feel = Am

Having crab legs and rice and asparagus with Hollandaise

I made the sauce I made the rice

Awesome husband cooks and de-ickifies my crab leg

I eat I am

Goodbye

[katrinnac]

i am here barefoot

rubbing sand from smooth shells

grating the already grated with the grated

parallel, futile,

cell lungs huff up flight

hemoglobin cresting, never escaping

i’m made for more than this

but my blood like me goes round and round

-/katrinnac

[katrinnac]

morning lagoon sinews,

the horizon hinged

like a mirror, sky becomes water

bridge becomes two

birds fly as flocks of twins

parallel, you and i

desperate to change what we didn’t make

the same, the pain we walked, to us

-/katrinnac

[katrinnac]

[katrinnac]

That which slides wordless, inside

The moon round and white

Tautly tugs and pearls

Clamped shut, the pearl grows

Tidal waves in veins, I lurch

Let me go, let me out,

Let me roll, opalized and slimy

Up the blackened-blood night sky,

Mournful but content at last

-/katrinnac

[katrinnac]

It’s my hard edges I struggle with

Thick scars of defense

Like a Donner winter with some

Like watching paint dry with others

Don’t underestimate the power of boring someone

I watch others openly share, smile

Not like I smile with arms crossed

I witness first hand the open reaction

Openness begets endearment

But mine hides behind bland, beige, rusty doors

Bolted, seemingly abandoned

If I trust you, the door bursts open

A lush greenhouse with a long wooden table of generosity, candles of long-burning care and fountains of love, fluffy couches of humor, warm tea of calm, and bookcases full of thoughts, stay and be

The hard edges serve no one now

A past, a protected me

People always see the past first

How I wish I could tear it down

Be only a wide avenue of tender shoot smiles

The scars hide the words in my eyes

It bats down my arms reaching for a hand

How I wish I could live exposed,

Trusting I can thrive in my environment

But I am the hard and icy

And the camouflage of bland

I can’t be only blooms of kindness tucked behind

/- katrinnac

[katrinnac]

I’ve been absent

Sitting on roads of hot tar

Washing in winter rain

The wind breaking through fibers of my coat

Of Cloth, not at all suited for rain

Soft as horse’s nose

And I imagined I suffer greatly

The cars were unkind

The rain wet my hair and jeans

Which stuck to me, and stiffened like death,

Already blue

There were so many people yelling

The noise and cold were unbearable

And I wondered outside my mind

Watching their irritation, at what?

I wondered, as I chose to lay still on the street

Why is it I can’t make my mind take me elsewhere

I can go ever so many places, yet there’s the road

Willfully refusing to be dismissed

There the rain that I had already asked to leave

There, the people, that I never invited in

I have so little within my control

I should get up, I suppose

But it’s the one thing I can choose

And I haven’t finished thinking this through

Why is it, the world won’t reorganize at will?

And if it won’t,

Why is it people keep telling me I can choose

-

/katrinnac

[katrinnac]

A deep breath

[katrinnac]

In this one, I dance in public

Everyone dances too

No one bothers my awkwardness

No one minds my tears

Everyone meets my eye at some point

Be free, they say

And I do

/- katrinnac

[katrinnac]

Yellow

[katrinnac]

Miss you! 🌠

I almost never check this! You’re so sweet, thank you (belatedly).