poem Each Half is the Enemy, a poem about how everything is a battle in life - even yourself, By Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

[the Writing of Kuypers] [JanetKuypers.com] [Bio] [Poems] [Prose]

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Each Half is the Enemy live 7/17/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Each Half is the Enemy live 7/17/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (S)

See YouTube video
of Eric Esden reading the Janet Kuypers poem Each Half is the Enemy live 9/18/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

See YouTube video
of Eric Esden reading the Janet Kuypers poem Each Half is the Enemy live 9/18/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (posterize filter)

See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Each Half is the Enemy in Nashville 10/26/13 in her Nashville Halloween feature

See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her “Periodic Table” poems (and two original songs) live in her Chicago 10/20/13 feature Nashville Halloween feature, including this writing

Download this free chapbook of the
Nashville Halloween feature,
w/ Tag Team and Periodic Table poems
in this show, including this poem.

See YouTube video 6/26/16 of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems, Vent, Each Half is the Enemy, and her Periodic Table poem Vanadium at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry: Spoken & Heard (w/ a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video 6/26/16 of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems, Vent, Each Half is the Enemy, and her Periodic Table poem Vanadium at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry: Spoken & Heard (filmed with a Sony camera).

Each Half is the Enemy
Janet Kuypers
7/29/13
When the bulldog ant of Australia
is cut in half,
the halves see each other as enemies.
The head attempts to devour the tail.
And the tail,
in an effort to defend itself,
battles for up to thirty minutes
to sting the head. And
this battle happens everywhere in the world,
because it’s always that the two halves
of the whole
will religiously remain at odds.
#
When born at the cusp of Gemini,
you have a twin,
and your other half is a Cancer.
And if you weren’t born under that sign,
trust me.
Look for it. This applies to you too.
Because sometimes you want to tear it apart,
that other half,
you despise everything about it —
everything that somehow is a part
of you.
It’s everything you don’t want to admit —
because life will remain a battle, as you
continually struggle
against everything you don’t want to believe.

my hand to an anim of jkchair