Kaitlyn Kessinger - Multiple Works

Quarter Life Crisis 

oh god, i got milk from the bodega and it tasted weird -er than my name on a dog tag, chips for a crunch to locate, gps-triangulate, wild wolves into domestic creatures of habit find comfort, plush socks that indent swollen feet as a sort of punishment for never leaving home, being there and being here is the same level of anxiety, fomo, or yolo, or some weird acronym the kids say i never give new things a chance, but that's true not really because i adopted a cat from the pound and she’s not a dog who barks but sheds the same black i never wear, but i own it too afraid to throw it away, fast fashion is all the rage but i can’t sew i buy yarn in bulk, but can’t crochet, my estate sale will be fun unlike the onions that give me heartburn pork skin makes me nauseous, still remember cars filled with their stench, crunch, and the window went down but never rolled up again, needed taped shut and it whistled the whole way home 

they still ask about the boyfriend that doesn’t exist like the back problems i only feel never diagnose because doctors are expensive like the ring my cousin begs for and the children she thinks tangible but goddamn she owns a husky and lives in a one-bedroom apartment with a ferret no child for her or me or the girlfriend they opt for when i say no boyfriend and my mom gives me gifts of rainbows as if to subliminally message that gay is okay but please dear god have sex with someone who can gives you a ring a kid a home in the same state because we never fixed the car and i haven’t gotten an oil change since four big trips ago and the man from the street from the store from the shop all told me to get an oil change before and after every big trip the office is not a big trip nor is it an office but not a department store in between a big boy small boy job but it lets me eat fresh fruit that rots in my fridge and buy the baked potatoes i eat every night.

there are stars in her 

cropped pink tee pulls up 

under the stars’ caress 

but I was distracted by Just Dance your lipstick (pink) as you whispered why that Katy Perry song got bleeped 

and I never understood 

you tasted like cherry drizzle 

the first time you cried 

we kissed the moon in ode 

nails baby-doll pink the same 

as your eyes and swollen lips 

graze the stars in yawn 

flash of under boob 

from reaching high cause 

pickup lines to die on my pink 

cheeks, once I knew the smoothest 

crease in softest skin, connect-the-dot to pubis to stomach pudge 

how sweet is the wrinkle from thigh to the vibrancy in a g-string 

neon green contrasts your pink 

personal growth in the hips 

from a surgery unique to 

toned pink stomach scars 

and you hula-hooped saturn's rings, o’ dearest galaxy girl.

Bastardized Tea Time for the Youthful 

it’s the tea leaves not strained— floating dead bug carcasses embalmed with mango bits, fragrant but a tasteless film in a mouth burned, stained container made to hold 

ruined— a never more ivory, 

disillusioned care into painted porcelain with golden edges too dainty to forgive 

and where does all the honey go? 

farmer’s markets with golden guilt in heaps and spooned— folded to dissipate 

hopes of something warm 

to avoid sticky pools in empty cups, 

an amber for the reading of dissected legs and withered petals 

for a future told from remains must end pleasantly, or at least in celestial theory simplicity is the only sin, bejeweled 

spoon tiny, only crafted for hand wash, whirlpool in miniature only to flow over, filling saucers and leaving droplets 

on white papers carelessly lost 

crystalized expectations for an event idolized in past, causing china cabinets bursting with cozies and cups, stacked high with a wibble-wobble every time someone takes a step, the temptation to covet the history of someone else’s sip matching their lips with a ghostly brew, coaxes lace out to dance upon the table

it is a day (sunny) 

It is a sunny day 

when my mother cries for a winter forecast 

not due for 9 months 

she howls when they 

cut down the trees. 

The sun is a day 

amongst the sawdust 

with nowhere squirrels solace in our porch 

rotted from feminine neglect. 

Day it is sunny 

my father calls 

to check the pressure 

from away 

but I never learned 

how to drive. 

It is a day 

the town floods, 

sewers never worked 

they house the crocodiles and dandelion fields. 

Day sunny is it 

when my sister has 

labor of cooing baby 

shitting in her arms 

wailing never have kids in between soft kisses 

and adult lego kits 

for her boyfriend. 

Sunny is 

my cousin who bartends in a karaoke bar, drunk to

tunes of love boat 

his sister swaddles 

a ferret in croon. 

It is a sunny day 

when it is a sunny day 

and outside is the longing 

despite the glare and fog 

like midwestern wheat bars 

feed children protein 

shakes and varnish in a shack with skinned deer from the interstate 

like mac and cheese (sun) 

but something wasn’t quite right because that's not what guts are like, noodles spiraled amish but the stock, maybe, 

was the lining of 

yours mine ours 

in the stew in the pie 

in the zucchini bread 

that i ate before i knew 

it was a vegetable disguise 

day is sunny then why is 

a time it just 

won’t go away the creeping basements 

in houses i no longer live in no 

basements in most of them now i used to run quick in the dark afraid of the closets 

and why were there so many in base ments 

no one ever meant for it 

to flood so often

the sun is not enough 

because they are cutting down the trees and we hit foxes in the road 

while their babies watch 

on the side did you want 

fries at the bar to soak up the 

bad beer the bud light on tap 

no i don’t drink that but the eel might who powers the home 

if it is not phallic than 

vagina organic 

and i cry, 

it is a sunny day.