un.friend?

they streamline their friends like an org making layoffs. they do not for a second bother with how it could feel to be unfriended. you thought you were enough of a companion to be allowed in the sacred space of reposts and detritus like body shaming humor and emoticon hell. you thought saying happy birthday on their birthday in 2015 made a fair enough splash on the double helix steam. there are no goodbyes online anymore. put on an old beatles record and howl at the moon. find twenty new friends to replace them by noon.

say hello to autumn

I wish I could take your loneliness and fill it up with non-threatening things will never leave you. I could be boredom and light a match inside your skull, we could watch shadows play on the wall. I wish the summer was over, too. One of my wishes came true. Say hello to autumn 'cause it's fall.

makin shadows - by katya

sure sure sure (circa 2011-12)

Don't go-o   o-o-o
spans the world and
then falls alongside it as
you fall away


from one
another
and left by your lonesome
you
imagine (poorly) what it would be like to live alone

Had you been (alone) long enough
you would not be so worried
about being that way
(alone) imagining (poorly) what it would be like
to be coupled up again and
being one or the other
you cannot imagine
too well

Each morning
(when you come to)
Slap your face
girl. Drink your coffee
black

Wait   don't go
be (mine) said the mirror
be ours

Ours be ob
literate
rated short of the qualite
verite

Ob
long
(traces hold on)
in song

Ob
literate
ate twice as much

Still you lack
still you come back
(comma)
feel
comme lit
vulva hood sensate
clit

Cut yourself
some slack
awkward awk
period (time of month)
once honored twice mocked
breast enhance in the fall
leaves something less
redux

Ack
look at that
rack
smiling eyes over the canyon
few inches average elevation
milk shake nation

ack awk gawk
heart attack

Sure sure sure
if you feel it
do it soon
sure sure sure
new
waxing waning full moon

Suresuresure
whatever
the moments momentum
needs your all you

got your attention

Kinda lead
kinda cheer

sure sure sure but
soon
employ
plot
devise

Sure sure sure
remember
memory
ember
the fire
the flame
flickers
falls out
back
to uncolored
to
the same

More of
less

wants you back...
wants you what
you want what
you track what
you back you
backtrack
ack


You go
getter
letter
deliver
soon
let her
sure sure sure
forever stamps
sure sure
those ones they them
thematic
whatever

Go
show her
get her
let her go
to the hills
to the fields
to the small patches
unseen
unheard of
let her

They will
they will rise
yes
sure for sure
for sure for her for sure
they will
we will
all will
get her

So no
more if ands buts
sew and stitch
soul seven sides spirit ways
and able
to table and blood
blood let
her


--  KatYa, 2016

you were. i was

you were seeking (someone after work) you were. i was a little something to look at (we were young) i was, on that night (following no one) awake in a different way, unusually done up (tryin to get a charge in the) senseless world (with us), pretty preloaded (bound to be impulsive) both of us and tight (lonely maybe but not needing nothing) that night.

you were.
i was

i was seeking (for so long comin up empty), going home alone (without finding anyone) you were traveling backward (to remember the past) insincerely, we spoke in whispers (it was the lies in your eyes) i knew, your pain (you were)
i was

breathless at first
some difficulty and all alone (just imagine), you gave me someone to envision (someone who could care when caring was all was asked and running a shocking deficit) being with (being with you) and  you were. i was.

we were somethin (material) random. of a sudden (indebted) rolled pinner of a joint. tight (like that). god is good. baked into the bread. wholesome (hearted) and not having to speak (talking about it was always so terrible anyway and made us feel bad about ourselves) was a gift we both were given. you were. i was

something special is about to go off
and may we make (us) last
as long as we
possibly
can

light in august and shredded mail

The guitar. The bicycle. The running shoes. The webcam. The laptop. The unopened mail. The opened mail. The shredded mail. It's August and sure enough I risk being overexposed again. Doesn't take much nowadays. I do my best work predawn. And I'm sorry to the ones I love whose lives are not yet settling with the dust. There's little chance I will be able to open my doors to let you in, this month. 

August and the light cannot be intimidated by glass of any thickness. From a distance I see (and even feel) your struggle, for it only takes a few words or an image to convey. Maybe you want to stand before me so I can see and know more, but what good would it do? We both know I am not the solution to your troubles, though I may make a petty salve. Triple antibiotic. I offer my heart, my mind, my spirit. 

I would so like to say I love you, the spirit of you, the best in you, but what good would it do? You should know by now, you should. Deep down I think you do, otherwise you wouldn't be inviting me back in again. I am honored, too. A few years ago nobody was inviting me anywhere. I was always tryin to be so hard and now I have softened again under the sun, how did I become so soft and hard like glass to light? Who am I to be a walking contradiction and how do you walk, this way?

August. I think on Faulkner who somehow captured it for me, or wrapped my sense of it with his own personal papers. He made August more real for me. There may have been others but I cannot remember. I think of Rodin, but only because his first name was August. I won't have any children, but if I had a boy I might name him the same, for we could nick him - Oggy!

We see no end to any summer in August in the valley, the light and heat will have their way with us through September and often into October. And some of us, what once was me, will see no end to misery, misfortune and pain. Nobody should be told they brought this on themselves, but if you have been there like I have, you also know that you had some part in it, and maybe even the largest of all the roles. For you are always there in the center of it, are you not?

Learn your lines well, my dear, and know you are not alone. I am behind you as well, with others whose parts are also to be played. I will take that deep breath from behind the curtains, steady myself and walk in under the lights with you in my own time and when the script demands it. Your stage presence in your own life is irrefutable. 

you were the one all alone

The skies were always one way or another, laughing or crying back then. The horizons were wide and unflawed, or you couldn't see them at all. You traveled another highway, singing to yourself. The sea was waiting for you, carbonated foam rolling up and reaching out for anyone and you. You would walk in and never be seen again. But not today. Not today. The kids smiled when they saw you, immortal in your pain, you smiled, too, for you both knew forever, in a day the way you walked, your hands half in your pockets caught on the loops. The little hands they wouldn't ever let go.  But not today. Not today. You were the one all alone.

touch

These days
these nights

these scars
which map
the skin

these highways
these hairstyles
these thoughts
all lead to dead
ends

the tax dollars
we spend to connect and
reconnect us

overpasses
underpasses
mobile phones

your family
your clothes
your hair your age has
changed

these trees
rooted in the yard

the paint
once fresh
chips off
into the grass

the asphalt cracks
like laughter

the anger
like lightning
the tears

there is no wind
there is no rain
no thunder nor
darkness

can dilute
this lonely
feeling

but when
 i hold
your hand...