Kate Marie

[writerscupsoftea]

keeping score of november.

Today I finally cleaned my room. I found heart stickers stuck to the soles of my socks, and tinsel ripped from hometown-team pom-poms. There were matches struck days ago, laid at the floor of a fireplace that’s never functioned, below the scented candle on the mantle that I huddle by for warmth. What I would give to be rich enough to turn on the heat. As I bend to pick up the matches, to…

keeping score of november.

[writerscupsoftea]

When I Go.

I’d like to be a tree when I go. To give back all the oxygen that I spent trying to convince the world that we mattered. To have branches and leaves that shake to make enough noise that it sounds like I’m still here. Still soothing my own aches with words that make pain sound less petty, make sweat smell more sweet. I’d like to be something beautiful, something fruitful. An orange tree, I…

When I Go.

[writerscupsoftea]

octubre.

October is the month of many. My birthday, Halloween, and the infamous canon event. My one this year was getting so ill before the week of Halloween that I ended up in A&E. Quite a spooky time indeed. It’s forced me to shift my perspective on quite a lot of things. The most important thing being how I take care of myself. I’ve never been very good at it. It’s the last on a very long list of…

octubre.

[writerscupsoftea]

22.

It’s 7:13pm on October 15th, 2025, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The kettle is singing, and my friends are too. They arrived almost thirty minutes ago, and dinner is still not ready. But they don’t mind. They’ve got wine, and cider, and helping hands to shred pork and de-husk previously dehydrated hominy. They’re all just happy to be here. Somewhere in the living room, my friends switch on fairy…

22.

[writerscupsoftea]

lady, lady

On Wednesday, I turn 22. This time last year, I was completely alone in a foreign country, my life falling apart, and I had just spent my birthday with a room full of strangers. Kind strangers, some of whom are now my closest friends, but strangers still. The week after, I walked into a “Mexican” goods store full of Spanish items, and had a panic attack so bad that I had to call my little…

lady, lady

[writerscupsoftea]

love, reserved

I am completely in love with the idea of love, in all of its forms. All of the completely stupid, inane, beautiful, precious, and incomprehensible forms that rule the world in whispers and shouts. The love you have for your family that is uncompromising and never-ending. The trust and the ritual you can find in memorizing your little sister’s rehearsal schedule and listening to the playlist you…

[writerscupsoftea]

happy

I wish I knew how to create things when I’m happy. I only come to my laptop, to my journals even, when the world seems to be falling apart and I’m desperate to remind myself how to pull it back together. I’m not sure why I do it, I’m not sure why I can’t. I haven’t told you anything yet and I’m already scared that if I say it, it won’t be real anymore. All of the things I was dying to tell you…

happy

[writerscupsoftea]

precioso oso

When I moved away from home, everything I owned was covered in dog hair. All of my belongings have been covered in dog hair since the summer of 2013, when we first got Bear. He came to us like all good things in my family do; completely unplanned and by total accident. One of my older cousins, Chris, was moving to New York for culinary school right after rescuing the most beautiful…

precioso oso

[writerscupsoftea]

starting to sound scottish (a lie.)

A revisit of the idea of the second you open your mouth, you’re from somewhere and how the new people I meet tell me that I sound a bit more Scottish than i think. 

[writerscupsoftea]

journaling on the edge of the world

Almost being done with the journal I started when I first moved here (late night journaling with plans to be alone more often)

[writerscupsoftea]

flowers, and four girls

A flat of four girls always having flowers from some friend, foe, or lover. (Returning from Paris, throwing away the roses Hannah gave me and staring at the ones Maddie receieved)

[writerscupsoftea]

summer, 2025

Yesterday, while I was cooking a dinner that I knew would make me late for work, Arthur’s Seat caught on fire. By the time I had heard, you could already smell the smoke that was pluming from the side of the hill. My flatmate and I ran to witness it after I had seen pictures and videos on the Instagram story of my previous flatmate from halls. By the time my right foot left the front step, door…

summer, 2025

[writerscupsoftea]

paris, in the rain.

Today, the kind of rain that makes the world look like it’s beneath a veil of static is keeping me from the park. It also activated a sixth sense that woke me from a rather good dream, forcing me to run downstairs and out into the garden to collect my laundry from the hang-dry lines as it started to pour down. Tomorrow, I leave for Paris. It’s the only reason I took the risk to wash and dry my…

paris, in the rain.

[writerscupsoftea]

hang time

Back home in California, there’s a theme park called Knott’s Berry Farm. It’s taken many shapes, and on seasonal occasions it’s known by many other names. But there’s always been boysenberries, snoopy, and roller coasters. The summer before I turned 17, or maybe the one between 18 and 19, there was a new ride built up. They called it Hang Time. We were told that it was the closest to a 90…

hang time

[writerscupsoftea]

mother's daughter

I feel most like my mother’s daughter when my hair is at it’s waviest and the wind is blowing it in my face. When I’m walking to the bus stop with Alanis Morissette blasting in my headphones or when I visit the guy at the curio-style music shop that sits so quietly at the end of the road. I feel most like her daughter when I can’t sleep, so I get out of bed to greet the morning on my own terms,…

mother's daughter

[writerscupsoftea]

Food, God, Wanderlust, and Anthony Bourdain

I am in such a desperate state lately that I find myself on an hour-long WhatsApp call with my little sister at midnight- my time. I listen to her talk about the K dramas she’s been watching as I scour online for the nearest Catholic Church. I search for a queer-affirming one. An oxymoron. Google laughs at me as I remember the reason that I gave up going to church in the first place. It was…

Food, God, Wanderlust, and Anthony Bourdain

[writerscupsoftea]

home, and california.

Today, as I march amongst the people that make me feel happy, safe and seen under gray skies and rainbow flags, I realize that I am meant to be in California. Or at the very least, on my way back, for a wedding I’ll never get to witness. My friend gets married in a week, and I’m supposed to be there. Eating cake, catching up with the girls I used to gab with about a Hockey team I rarely follow…