04/01/2023 by Kaylee Warner

The wheels cry out for oil
black greasy smears
the bike chain rusted to a halt
Illness digs deeper 
the heart muscle — a weathered curtain
patience blown bare by the wind
the mealworm larvae emerge from darkness
spiraling, creaking, deteriorating—
this place isn’t what it used to be. 

4/21/22 by Kaylee Warner

Last quarter moon brings release
of tension. Noise. Noise. Noise.
That maddens the Grinch on Christmas Day.
Time lapse. Lapsing. Lapsed. Freeze. Framed.
My lips are on fire. Exhaustion impending.
The throat chakra of women is burning flame.
Is burnt black and extinguished. I am both.
Dreaming of Gold Past Lives. Or are you stuck 
between awake and asleep? That scary figure is
staring at you in the dream, taunting, pulling,
running towards you as you awake, in your bedroom. 
Who are you? Scratching to get out. The one you deny? 
With the charred voice, rasping.
The transfiguration of Christ was a rearrangement of molecules;
a spiritual explosion beyond the
visible light spectrum.
Compost emerged.
The artist puts more paint on the canvas.

How many breaking points do we have? by Kaylee Warner

From the bed in which she laid, unable to move
from the pain, she let out a scream and kicked him
out telling him to never come back again.

the white phone hangs from the chord on the wall.
the screaming echoes in the forest.
the closed books sit in a pile on the table.
the tv flashes, lights up the house.
she whimpers as she crawls up the stairs. 

October by Kaylee Warner

The Lizard Wizard approaches the Veil
He carries a secret with him
He crossed the threshold a thousand times over
Between life and death and back to life 
What he could once see as solid truth wavers now 
The pumpkins grew larger than angry men, swallowing them  
The trees had silly faces and the walls grooved and smiled


But tonight he will bathe the blood off his skin 
As he says goodbye for one last time
The moss and mushrooms reach out to him, grasp him
The Lizard Wizard moves forward, unbothered.


The landscape ebbs and flows and morphs from
a scared opal to a bouquet of calendula to a rotting skull 
That the Raven sits on, belly laughing
He pauses but then begins to rock side to side 
A dark, eerie guitar drone is coming from within


He holds the tightly woven ball of all things evil 
He dances forward, into the darkness 
Into a place where there is no sound, nor ears to listen
And he whispers, it’s all but a dream 


The Critic In Me by Kaylee Warner

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The critic in me can be brash, bold, unrelenting. She is the perfectionist. She is the problem solver. She holds the glass half full. She is transparent.  She travels across a deep sea of love in a rowboat built of masculinity.

April 28, 2021 by Kaylee Warner

Whiteness of Isolation

She dropped the gallon of milk.
The carton exploded as it made contact with the wooden floor.
She stood there, staring blankly, at the white flood.

The ink on the map started to bleed,
distinct places blurred into a homogenous wasteland. 
She had no concept of geography.

The pain of loneliness made roads go on forever.
They connect one undistinguishable town to the next.

The rhythm of the droplets of milk
hitting the floor in the basement as it seeped 
through the floorboards picked up pace.