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the poetry 2 CD setCHAOTIC ELEMENTS
Order this iTunes track: Janet Kuypers - Chaotic Elements - For My Car or My Life
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CD: Janet Kuypers - Chaotic Elements CD: Napster
Listen mp3 file to the DMJ Art Connection,
off the CD the DMJ Art Connection Disc One
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from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (31:34)
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from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (5:11)
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from Death Comes In Threes, live 03/18/03 in Chicago
Listen mp3 file to the CD recording of this piece used with the performance art show Death Comes in Threes 03/18/03
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(5:11) performed live of the beginning of the 3/18/03 live show Death Comes in Threes.
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem For My Car Or My Life live 1/6/16 at Rad Radam Open Stage in Austin TX (from a Nikon Cool Pix S7000).
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem For My Car Or My Life live 1/6/16 at Rad Radam Open Stage in Austin TX (from a Canon Power Shot camera).

for my car or my life

October 16, 1998

I never once had the chance to grasp
that anything ever happened to me

for me it wasn’t until after the hospital,
after what seemed like an endless stream of weeks.
Was I expected to move to another house and
move in with unexpected people and
face the fact that I had to move and
I had to put all of my belongings in storage,
that my car was gone
Was I expected to

go through all of this? That insurance
companies wouldn’t even attempt to
fix the car. They gave me enough money
for my time, but not for my car or for my life

No one has paid me back for
all the time that I have now lost
I had
planned to take my time off to travel, to

take my car and do what I wanted
to do
Now I have no car, no time,
no chance
who is going to pay me
back for all that I have lost?

There is no one to pay me back
There

is no one to even apologize to me, and
I have no one to forgive for all of this
They
couldn’t even give me that much

So who is going to pay me back
No one.
I knew that when it happened, when I was
angry, when I resigned myself to losing

anything that I used to value
There’s nothing I
can do to get all of that back
It’s gone
I’ve
never before thought that anything could
happen to me, because nothing did. I was

in the intensive care unit to the hospital,
I was on a respirator, I could say more of
the same, but I’d just bore you with the
details
The problem is that I have to deal
with all of this happening to me, and there
is no one around that can answer for all of
what has happened

I just have to let it
still sit inside myself, I still brood about
it, and I could hope that time is supposed to
heal all wounds
I don’t know if that works
though, if time does in fact heal all wounds.
That’s what people keep telling me
I don’t

know how time could help me with this one
Ask me in a few years
if I forgot
and everything is better


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

the book Death Comes in Threes the CD Death comes in Threes the CD the DMJ Art Connection Disc 1


original version:

for my car or my life

I never once had the chance to grasp
that anything ever happened to me
for me it wasn’t until after the hospital,
after what seemed like an endless stream of weeks.
Was I expected to move to another house and
move in with unexpected people and
face the fact that I had to move and
I had to put all of my belongings in storage,
that my car was gone. Was I expected to
go through all of this? That insurance
companies wouldn’t even attempt to
fix the car. They gave me enough money
for my time, but not for my car or for my life.

No one has paid me back for
all the time that I have now lost. I had
planned to take my time off to travel, to
take my car and do what I wanted
to do. Now I have no car, no time,
no chance. Who is going to pat me
back for all that I have lost?

There is no one to pay me back. There
is no one to even apologize to me, and
I have no one to forgive for all of this. They
couldn’t even give me that much.

So who is going to pay me back? No one.
I knew that when it happened, when I was
angry, when I resigned myself to losing
anything that I used to value. There’s nothing I
can do to get all of that back. It’s gone. I’ve
never before thought that anything could
happen to me, because nothing did. I was
in the intensive care unit to the hospital,
I was on a respirator, I could say more of
the same, but I’d just bore you with the
details. The problem is that I have to deal
with all of this happening to me, and there
is no one around that can answer for all of
what has happened. I just have to let it
still sit inside myself, I still still brood about
it, and I could hope that time is supposed to
heal all wounds. I don’t know if that works
though, if time does in fact heal all wounds.
That’s what people keep telling me. I don’t
know how time could help me with this one. Ask
me in a few years if I forgot and everything is better.