k and k

baseball cap on
backwards
tomboy
bad news
the original
skinny
acidwash
jeans
tore up old
self. like usual

a taller you
a bad hair day
no bra. ya
wool cap
spinning around a
middle
finger
scratcher bingo by
a switchblade
gettin’ high

wow
twenty ten
just look at us
then
the madness
the sadness
followed us
haunted us
still i long to
remember

the way you
touched me
gave me
chills
weight of an eighty
impala beneath us

reading our poems
aloud and again
the fortune of
finding a
friend
oh why
oh why
did it all
have to
end

katya mills

© 2018

pulse @39

The medical tech excused herself to speak with her supervisor. She hid her worry rather well. I was in a gown after an EKG. I had a paperback in hand, from the donated library in the waiting room. This happened almost every time. I was once living at high speeds. Sleepless nights. Racing around to no end. Years ago I exited my madness. Since then life has been something to cherish in slow motion. Few sudden surprises. When I saw her, she looked relieved. I asked her the number. Today my pulse chimes in @ 39.

life as lab

As a kid  I witnessed attributes and played with them.

What would happen when I misbehaved?

life as laboratory I tried lying and

got caught. tried being super

nice to people I don’t know

I tried bullying (after I myself was bullied)

I tried kissing my friends (without their consent)

I tried doing chores without being asked

not doing chores

fighting with fists

reading a book from beginning to end

without stopping

writing a book (age eleven)

If an adult caught me experimenting this way

I risked being earmarked based on my behavior.

This was called judgment and came very easy to them.

I tried it…

I learned not to trust adults

very well

hides behind umbrella

you can try and hide behind umbrella. you can hide behind your interpretation of the law. you can hide inside your home behind your money and your discourse. you can call for law enforcement. do not be surprised when they pull you out from cozy privilege and imprison you. restricting your arms at the wrists. rolling your fingertips in ink. will you smile for the camera? will you represent your vitriol? will you miss your mocha cappuccino reserve and high castle office? the fawning gucci assistants shredding papers, who you undress with your condescending stare, leaning back in your chair while stroking your gold-weighted pen?

painted fences

i was moody

i was ready i was

running through a field

i was young i was

adventurous

i was heading for a fall

you were walking

you were friendly eating raspberries

off the bush

you were older

and reticent and you

wanted to protect me

we were unlikely bound for friendship

in a deep and southern

town we drank orange juice

walked the shoreline

painted fences stood us

down

we live like birds

you get a key and a room
of your own in a small city

what a feeling
you can make a whole world
all to yourself

you can read books
you can play guitar
you can write books
and songs with
friends

you have an address
you live there
wow

rescue some kittens
and raise them

life can be really very nice
for some years and then
one day things change

they tell you GO!
you gotta go

they push you out

you cannot stay under

any circumstance

we live like birds

one.some

when you have someone who means the world to you and you are related by blood and you have no history of ever doing one another harm, you have about the best thing going in this life. be grateful. reach out to them if you can. talk to them.

kiss the smoking girl

you think faster than you write and can your memory keep (you) up, when the days fall off like calendar paper painted numerics in a spotted corner where a pay phone once connected the disconnected? relegate your dreams to a political sideshow. the overthrow of nickels by dimes and half dollars in a strip club awaits. she leaves you drunk and singing. your oldsmobile won’t start up in the cold. you don’t care. shove your hands in your overcoat and walk off. watch your breath. smells like midwest. something different the day has for you. bread factory. maybe a motel room. cartoons. a new friend as tore up as you are. laughing against a socieconomic slider. anything but a tow truck and another bill to sign. buy a pint of whisky. postpone the inevitable. kiss the smoking girl.

(everyone needs) an anchor

I am troubled for her. I want an anchor to hold and keep her from dashing upon the rocks. There’s been time and room to navigate these challenges, to circle and play, to figure eight, collide the waves.

The surface stretches out like a canvas.

I have numbers to make sense of it.

I have broken her into lines.

Now it is late and the wind picking up. Consonants are overthrowing consonants. All must be sealed and lashed for the night. The vowels are howling. Hoping to withstand the harshest critique.

She has to hold.

oath of allegiance ina bath of silence

maybe i read too much shakespeare in high school. maybe i drank too much coke. i kept to myself with a few close friends. i made a pilgrimage to faulkner. i kept writing and writing though it seemed pointless at times, as there was no internet to share. i read my work in bars and cafes, in chicago and tampa in the late nineties, behind a highball whisky. maybe i smoked alotta pot. i carried a leatherbound journal wherever i went. now i have a cell phone and press words in there. life is the same, although it changes. i may be getting older but i’m still young. maybe i watched too much tv. i will always love to ride trains, even subways. i take a bath of silence every morning. and an oath of allegiance to my creative process. i am very well, the way i live. but i went about things so poorly for so long, it still hurts. i blame myself for the blunders i made. i am also unwell. mostly for having hurt you. i hurt myself badly, too.