Author: katkarney

I can’t watch any movie where the dog dies. I avoid fiction with that trope, too.

When media is realistically gory, or portrays graphic abuse against women and children, I’m out.

In books, if it’s a few lines and furthering a deeper plot, I can skim through and block it out. If it’s the whole theme, I disengage.

How are you going to desensitize yourself? My brother used to say.

Maybe it’s good that I can’t?

My partner is a horror fan, gore doesn’t faze him. When we watch movies together, he always checks www.DoesTheDogDie.com to screen for triggering content.

Bless the Highly Sensitive People committed to cataloging that info.

He does his own thing often. Murder podcasts, action movies, slasher films. I can’t help but overhear!

In the den, the sound of body blows. A mobster watches his brother get beaten to death by the rest of his gang with bats.

How can you watch this!?

You came in at a bad time, the rest of the movie isn’t this graphic.

I step outside and stroll around the block until the movie is over.

I’m not trying to make a moral declaration on behalf of all sensitive people.

Maybe a plea not to appeal to me to sit through any more torture scenes.

Do not view sensitivity as a skill issue, something to be overcome.

And if you expect me to, I’ll be out for a walk, looking for moss.

i see you curled in the petri dish
surrounded by bloody paper towels

it’s hard to think of you fondly,
but you “knew me when”

do you retain any impression of our time together?
are you happy to be free of me, too?

the sutures leave a track longer than my thumb
the skin of my back, now numb, protrudes like a dorsal fin

a personal touch, your final gift
(you know how much i love dolphins)

I started this blog seven years ago, as part of a writing class. As part of a small series of rituals to keep my soul and sanity intact.

Seven years also marks an unsuccessful last-ditch vacation to save a failing marriage. If nothing else, the trip was beneficial to my writing. New England in October is staggeringly beautiful. Pain is a serviceable muse.

I kept a journal and wrote prolifically during this time. It is prone to hyperbole, darkly dramatic, and often devolves into extremely biased shit-talking. Below is an old gem, from that journal, written by the Pemigewasset River. It had been raining all night, and the lower sleeping bag had been compromised by several small rivulets of water.

I’m looking forward to revisiting New England on my own terms and writing from a different headspace.

Rainy, 4AM
i woke next to your pale form
and for the last time
felt unsafe and unholy
in your presence

the river rushed on
the green light of the moon
encased us in a tomb &
made the sleeper a corpse

this reverse pyre
where the wife is drowned
once the husband expires

this plastic cocoon
of shaky promises renewed
kept the storm away, for a little while

for a little while, i thought only of myself
i had to wake you, to say:
the only thing keeping me beside you is the rain

Nobody remembers when their baby’s eyes turn from blue to brown. I found these notes in my postpartum journal.

Month 1 – Pacific deep blue gray
Month 2 – Sliced black olives (murky green at the center, inky rims)
Month 3 – Mossy pine trunks dappled with sunlight
Month 4 – Chocolatey slate tile
Month 5 – Iced tea, backlit by the summer sun
Month 6 – Tiger’s eye gemstones

I crest the hill on my morning walk. Sable, the neighbor’s goldendoodle, is waiting for me.
She dances a slow, proud circle. Universal retriever language for: I have a toy to show off!
She is “soft mouthing” it, carrying it gently like a prize game bird.
(In the absence of hunting, those instincts still kick in.)

“Oh, wow! What have you got there?” I coo.
Her owner’s grubby baseball cap!
He rounds the corner of his house, smiling and shaking his head.
Rapt in adoration of Sable’s sweetness, we laugh.

–

I think of the phrase money can’t buy happiness.

I agree in the sense that:
Happiness doesn’t proportionally increase with the monetary value of something.
(After all, without money, we would not be on this cozy suburban street.
Well-fed with our pets. The neighbor would be hatless!)
Happiness is not the item.
Happiness is the spirit of genuine, illimitable joy in which the gift is given and received.
Even the remembrance of that simple joy will hold value forever.

Sable confirms, with the wise wag of the retriever:
Happiness is free.

i walk a dusty
appalachian
backroad
the heat of the day
just subsiding 

i drift with bands
of cool air
sifting sideways
from the forest 

to a farm
in the hollow
with a gray faded barn

a red headed kid
feeds the animals

Agamemnon!

she yells 
to green-eyed hell 
hiding in the rafters  

Agamemnon emerges
unwavering 
unanswerable 

i ask why she gave
such a name
to a barncat 

she pauses her chores

a name is just noise put together…
those sounds fit him best
you see?

the sweet haze
of baked earth
tangles up
in sunbeams 

Agamemnon.

four sandy syllables 
a shortbread remembrance
of Allegheny soil
blessing my lips forever

our preschoolers’ chubby hands
scoop mulch
& dump muddy clumps
into our waiting palms

their tiny heads
conspiratorily close
collaborating in this
pretend pizzeria

us moms make no small talk
playacting a feast upon
the sodden slivers
slipping between our fingers

our eyes meet
reflecting the absurd delight
of living in this song, this poem
thanks for playing with us!

From my plush blanket cocoon, I notice our bedroom has too many mirrors. The mirror on L.’s dresser reflects the one on mine, which reflects three small, square, black-and-white-framed wall mirrors.

Maybe if I have enough mirrors, I can bridge the distance between reality without her
all the way back to when grandma was still living.

No. I know that’s not right. That death’s finality is a matter of time and not distance.

Loss is not a trick of refracting light.

I also know time goes on forever in both directions. Her kindness (and our lives together) will always be recorded there, woven into the fabric of existence.

I am sure now.

We’re as close as we’ve ever been.

It is Spring.

I’m on her sofa as she prepares cocoa in her blossom-printed kitchen.

I drift to sleep, wrapped in fleece, succumbing to the soft folds of peace and nostalgia.

I.
Iris grows
strong in spring’s warmth
taller overnight

II.

a galaxy of stars
covers her legs

the sun (long down)
still warms our skin

III.
as cherries blossom
we dance to Kool & the Gang
Get Down on It

i think of you while driving on an almost-spring day

sun, hot on my cheek
treetops tinted with the promise of foliage

laboratory brain cells have learned to play Pong

yet seasons swirl unnoticed
past wet, beaded eye-forms

these cells sense movement, light.

consciousness remains within predefined limits:
<your petri dish><my skull>

i hope you are well
and that comfort finds you