a chapbook of poetry by janet kuypers

Take The Pain When I’m laying down in the sun I close my eyes only so slightly And the sun beats down and burns my face And it penetrates my eyelids and scorches My eyes. I strain to keep from squinting. I struggle to keep my eyes just lightly closed To survive the scorching light, the burning. Do you understand this struggle, do you do this To see how long you can take the pain You know, when I struggle like this under the light I can feel my lips beginning to part And almost expect you to reach over and kiss me There’s a fine line between pleasure and pain When I’m laying down in the sun I close my eyes only so slightly And I take the pain

ecstacy He threw her up against the wall. Her mind was spinning; after all this time she never thought she’d have her arms around him again, save the embrace when they happened to be in the same city on business and were saying their cordial good-byes at the airport. He kissed her. She instinctively pulled at his shirt; two buttons bounced repeatedly on the hardwood floor and spun to a silent halt. He pulled her hair, pulling her head back. Her mouth opened naturally, slightly. She wrapped her arms around him, depending on his strength to keep her standing. He held her tighter, kissed her, knowing she needed this. Her emotions swelled, grew stronger, pulsed, until she couldn’t hold herself up any longer. She knew, after all these years, that he was the only one she could love wholly, the only one she loved everything about, from the slope of his nose to the way he never knew current events to the way he worked too hard to the way he loved too much. She knew this was everything. She knew this was life. She fell into his arms.

i’m thinking about myself too much all of my life it has all been about you what do you need what do you want how can i help you what can i do for you and now for once i start to live and now you tell me that i’m thinking about myself too much and i think back to all the time i’ve spent with you and all the care i’ve given you and now you tell me that i’m thinking about myself too much and i’ve cooked for you and i’ve cleaned for you and i’ve made sure everything in your world made sense and now you tell me that i’m thinking about myself too much and all i can think is that you’re only angry because i’m thinking about me at all

The Deep End love seems so appealing love is the bottom of the deep end love is what makes the kiddies walk to the edge of the diving board take a deep breath hold their little noses and close their eyes and brace themselves and jump in but none of them stay under too long because they know even at an early age when enough is enough

how are you The phone rang. Woke me up. I picked up the phone, stumbled out a hello. “Hi, it’s Sara.” Oh, hi, Sara, how are you? “Oh, fine,” she said. “How are things with you?” Oh, fine, I said, work’s been busy. “Oh, I know,” she said, “I was the maid of honor in Carol’s wedding, and tacked on to work I’ve been swamped.” Speaking of work, I said, I’m late. “Oh, okay,” she said, “talk to you later.” Good-bye. “Bye.” Got into the office. Waved my copy of U.S.A. Today at the receptionist’s desk. “Hi, Janet.” Hi Lisa. “How are you?” Fine tired. And you? “Oh, fine, it’s Monday.” And I checked my mailbox and headed for my desk. Sat at my cubicle. Larry peered in. “Hey, J.” Hey, Lar. “How are you?” Fine. And you? “Same ol, same ol.” And he walked away. Phone rang. This is Janet, I say. “Hi, this is Don Olsen.” Hey, Don, how are you? “Oh, fine, how are you?” Oh, fine. “Look, Janet, there’s a problem with the order you placed with us last week...” Got home. Checked messages. “Hey, Janet, it’s your sister. How are you? Give me a call.” The machine beeped when it was done. I picked up the phone to call her back, then I realized I had nothing to say. I hung up the phone. I walked into my bedroom.

fire alarms we were driving through Sequoia National Forest up a winding road along the mountainside and along the road a sign in the forest said check your fire alarms and we looked at each other and laughed, and joked because there are no fire alarms in a car to check

here is me i have a secret i have an awful secret and i can’t tell anyone you see, my life would fall apart if anyone knew everyone thinks i’m some one different but here is me. . The Mistakes He Made I Ralph lost three of his fingers while on the job at his factory at the time medicine couldn’t save his fingers after that, whenever Ralph looked at his fingers, he thought of the mistakes he made II Ed while working with a circular table saw reached up above him for a piece of wood and when the wood slipped he cut off the tips of two fingers once at the hospital he called his son asked him to check the sawdust- covered floors around the workbench to see if he could find them the doctors tried to reattach the tips, but they didn’t take after that, whenever Ed looked at his fingers, he thought of the mistakes he made III Lester Massey agreed with a friend to each chop off a finger of the other’s but after his friend chopped off Lester Massey’s finger he changed his mind about losing his own after that, whenever Lester Massey looked at his fingers, he thought of the mistakes he made

content with inferior men there are some theorists that say that women need to be able to look up to a man in order to feel complete. these theorists would say that a woman could not be president, at least not on a personal level. think of it - here is a woman, the most important person on earth, and she would never know of anyone who had more power than her. how could she look up to any man? how could she admire any man? how could she respect any man? and you know, i can kind of see that point, how can you love someone you don’t respect, i mean, i want someone in my life that can teach me something, that can help me grow, and if i was the most powerful person on earth i would probably think that no one could teach me anything. but the only thing i could think of in response to this theory is, why don’t men who are the presidents of the united states of america find themselves unhappy with their boring, unequal, supportive wives? why is it that men are content with inferior women but women aren’t content with inferior men?

this is my dilemma should I go to you this is my dilemma should I just not care anymore should I just act the part should I just not care anymore should I just let you fuck me should I just not care anymore should I just kiss you who cares suck me in take me in who cares throw me around it’s okay I’ve been thrown around before I’m used to this I’m used to this routine: back and forth, and then forgetting forgetting the feelings forgetting your name do it to me, if you want go ahead enjoy feel free I’ve felt it before I’ve lived it before I’ve known it before I’ve lived it before and no emotion is new to me anymore so should I this is my dilemma

communication I now that we have the information superhighway we can throw out into the open our screams our cries for help so much faster than we could before our pleas become computer blips tiny bits of energy travelling through razor thin wires travelling through space to be left for someone to decipher when they find the time II got into work the other day and got my messages out of voice mail: mike trisko left me his pager number and told me to contact him with some information mike wright told me to call him at the office between ten thirty and noon lorelei jones told me to check my email because she sent me a message i had to read so i first returned mike wright’s phone call but he wasn’t in, so i left a message with a coworker and then i dialed the number for mike trisko’s pager listened to a beep, then dialed in my own phone number then i got online, checked my email read a note from ben ohmart, emptied out the junk mail realizing i didn’t actually get a hold of anybody i tried to call my friend sheri but i got her answering machine so i said, “hi - it’s me, janet - haven’t talked to you in a while - ” at which point i realized there was nothing left to say - “so, give me a call, we should really get together and talk” III sara and i were late for carol’s wedding rehearsal which was a bad thing, because we were both standing up in the wedding and we were stuck in traffic, and i asked, “sara, you have a cel phone, don’t you?“ and she said “yes” and i asked, “well, do you know carol’s cel phone number, cause if you do, we can call her and tell her we’ll be late -” and she said, “no - do you know it?” and i said “no” IV I was out at a bar with Dave, and I was explaining to him why I hadn’t talked to my friend Aaron in a while: “You see, we usually email each other, and when we do, we just hit ’reply.’ when you get an email from someone, instead of having to start a new letter and get their email address, you can just hit the ’reply’ button on the email message, and it will make a letter addressed to the person who wrote you the letter originally. so one of us sent the other a letter, and it had a question at the end, so i hit ’reply’ and sent a response, with another question at the end of my letter. so we kept having to answer questions for each other, and we just kept replying to each other, sending a letter with the same title back and forth to each other. well, once i got an email from him and there was no question at the end, and so i didn’t have to send him a response. so i didn’t. and we never thought to start a new email to one another. so we just lost touch.” and then it occurred to me, how difficult it had become to type an extra line of text, because that’s why i lost touch with him and then it occurred to me, no matter how many different forms of communication we have, we’ll still find a way to lose touch with each other V now that we have the information superhighway we can throw out into the open our screams our cries for help so much faster than we could before but what if we don’t want to communicate or forget how too busy leaving messages, voice mails, emails, pager numbers forgetting to call back what if we forget how to communicate VI i wanted to purchase tickets for a concert but i was shopping with my sister and wasn’t near a ticket outlet but my sister said, “i have a portable phone, you can call them if you’d like” so she gave me the phone, and i looked at all these extra buttons, and she said, “just press the ’power’ button, but hold it down for at least four seconds, until the panel lights up, then dial the number, but use the area code, because this phone is a 630 area code, then press ’send’. when you’re done with the call, just press ’end’, and make sure the light turns off.” so i turned it on, dialed the number, pressed ’send’, pressed my head against the tiny phone and the line was busy and i couldn’t get through VII i wanted to get in touch with an old friend of mine from high school, vince, and the last i heard was that he went to marquette university. well, that was five years ago, he could be anywhere. i talked to a friend or two that knew him, but they lost touch with him, too. so i searched on the internet, to see if his name was on a website or if he had an email address. he didn’t. so i figured i probably wouldn’t find him. and all this time, i knew his parents lived in the same house they always did, i could just look up his parent’s phone number in the phone book, and call them, say i’m an old high school friend of vince’s, but i never did. and then i realized why. you see, i could search the internet for hours and no one would know that i was looking for someone. but now, with a single phone call, i’d make it known to his family that i wanted to see him enough to call, after all these years. and i didnt want him to know that. so i never called. VIII now that we have the information superhighway we can throw out into the open our screams our cries for help so much faster than we could before but then the question begs itself: who is there to listen

too much light too much light makes the baby go blind and too much light makes the moth rush into the flame and die in a final glorious blaze of glory and I have seen the light and I have seen it what is my choice: burn in the flame to burst quickly to die young or to slowly slip away to die slowly day by day to let people in darkness pull me in inch by inch until the light kills me

Two Minutes With Ayn Rand I don’t believe in things that aren’t proven, that we have no evidence of, but sometimes, sometimes, I still think about what I would do if I had two minutes to talk to you when someone asked me what I’d say I said I’d rather hear you speak I’m sure the words you would part unto me would mean infinitely more than what I could say to you and if I could talk to you I wouldn’t know what to say But I know I’d have to tell you like so many of your fans in the past that I thank you for showing me that there are logical people in the world that man can live by reason that reason is a virtue that selfishness is a virtue that I have a right to what I earn to what I create to what I know to be true I would have been still searching blindly for philosophical answers to the meaning of life if you never told me that I am worth something that I am my own end and it’s nice to know that even when I’m surrounded by these unthinking masses that there are people who hold their minds as the highest value out there somewhere in the world and the fact that they exist helps me through my days but you knew that you wrote about these heroes over the years and how could you manage to write gripping, thousand-page novels about heroes that a rational mind can’t help but love and did you really find that hero in real life? because I’m still looking. You’ve created these heroes but are they just created does anyone else understand these values as I do? Yes, thank you for giving me the answers I’ve been looking for, but tell me that someone else out there found the answers too so maybe, if those who posed this unreasonable illogical ethical question in the first place, if they could give me another two minutes so you could do some talking maybe then you could explain to me how to get through the days when no one understands you how to accept less than perfection when you’ve seen the purity and the clarity of the thinking mind

What do we say What do we tell our youth when we let them out on probation for violent crimes because there’s no room in our jails What does it say of us when a painting of a clown by John Wayne Gasey sells for millions What does it say of our self-esteem when hundreds of women write letters to Charles Manson asking for his hand in marriage What does it say of our media when it glorifies these dark heroes Dear Hero I want to know how your mind works I want to know why you did it I want to know how you feel about politics and love and marriage I hope you’re not suffering too much I love you What rights do we really take away from those who take our rights from us? I hope you’re not suffering too much Richard Speck, convicted of killing eight nurses, was videotaped in his prison cell by cell mates with his male lover, counting hundred dollar bills, snorting mounds of cocaine, showing off his hormonally- induced shapely breasts When a member of society commits a crime they relinquish the rights they have taken from others in theory One man in prison filed a lawsuit against the state for serving peas to him too many days in a row One man in prison filed a lawsuit against Ann Landers because she published his letter where he wrote he killed his wife One man in prison filed lawsuit after lawsuit against the state solely because he felt a great joy in uselessly spending the taxpayers’ money What do we say to all of this What do we say

civil war I the confederates are winning the battle but I know the north will win the war and all they’ll get is a ravaged battlefield II a civil war is raging inside me but I’m tired of fighting from within when all I want is a revolution . . issues you think i’m going to come running back to you again, do you, you think i need you so desperately that all you have to say is that you do care about me and that you don’t want me to leave your life and that you don’t want this to be goodbye, well, you told me good-bye once before and i took you back but now you’ve done it again and you think it’s all so easy and you think it’s all roses and candy and i’m not going back to you and what you did isn’t good for me and i know i sound like a psychai- trist now but you have some issues you need to deal with and i can’t be your counselor; i need someone to counsel me and if you need help you can’t help me, and i’ve figured that much out: you can’t help me

where I belong well, I have found that I must be the hound enslaved cause my hands and my feet they are bound to the ground and I struggle to sing just one sound so thank you for singing this song for showing me wrong is where I belong I’m in a haze yet I’m filled with this rage encaged by the intricate maze on this stage and I’m dazed as I page through my wage on the blaze and thank you for singing this song for showing me wrong is where I belong I smell the mace so I cover my face in case in my haste I can trace the harsh taste is my pace in this race is it all just a waste yes, thank you for singing this song for showing me wrong is where I belong

Why do you Why do you make us wait for you to come back? Why do you allow suffering? Why do you aim all hurricanes at mobile home parks? Why do you let us destroy ourselves? Why do you obstruct people from gaining knowledge? Why do no major Hollywood film companies collapse in one of your earthquakes? Why do you let innocent people die for crimes they didn’t commit? Why do you let the guilty go free? Why do you fight against progress and technology? Why do you fill this earth with so much pain? Why do you not come down here, right now, and show us your face? Why is it that the less intelligent people are, the more religious they are? Why do you treat women in the Bible as possessions? Why do you allow pro-wrestling? Why do you insist we have faith in you and make us denounce our brains? Why do you think we’d think you exist?

Barbie My sister-in-law gave me a Midge doll set when she married my brother. Midge came complete with a wardrobe of designer floor-length dresses, with sequins, and tulle, and three-quarter-length gloves. But Midge, an older model, had short red hair styled like a housewife, not like Barbie’s, long and blond and flowing. And Midge could never sit in a chair because her plastic legs were rigid and couldn’t bend. For my sixth birthday I received a P.J. doll, one of Barbie’s friends. P.J.’s hair was blonde, like Barbie’s, but it was shorter. And here eyes were brown, like mine. Not eyes to dream of. Eyes like mine. When I finally got you, Barbie, I treated you like some sort of goddess, you with your disproportionate figure and perpetual smile. When you never eat, you can stay thin. You can always be happy. I took plastic kitchen shelf liner and caulking glue and lined a shoebox so you could have a bath tub. I taped a straw around the back of the tub so you could have jets and extra bubbles when you soaked. My father’s pool table was your lake; a second shoe box served as your speed boat. You took all your friends for boat rides along the green; Ken, the Donny and Marie dolls, P.J., even Midge. But I couldn’t be like you, I had to eat, and I could only stand on my toes for so long when you stood like a dancer perpetually. I couldn’t always smile. I was only a little girl. And I was cursed with brown eyes. What did you teach me? I pressed you next to Ken under your pink and white bed sheets, but your plastic bodies made a loud noise when you came together. Your legs never intertwined. Your smile never changed. And now, all grown up, I visit my parent’s house, and they tell me I have boxes of toys that could be thrown away. Kitchen accessories for the Barbie camper, beaded dresses I made myself. And I think: I could give these toys to my niece, so she could play, so she could learn. And then I decide: no, these dolls, these values, these memories, they belong sealed in cardboard boxes, where only time can take its toll.

athena ladies and gentlemen high above the dancing elephants and the clowns driving around in their little cars honking their horns high above the lion tamers with their whips and chairs is our main attraction tonight: all eyes turn to Athena, the tightrope walker see her gracefully step out onto the paper-thin wire balance high above everyone else while all eyes are on her all without a net would you like to see her do a flip? a spin? touch the rope with her tiny, fragile fingers? Athena will put on the grandest of shows for you imagine, if you will, the fear she must feel: with one wrong move she falls to her death into the mouths of the lions in between the running clowns come, see her perform: watch her walk watch her move watch her shake this is the greatest show on earth

Copyright Janet Kuypers. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission.

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