The book 6//11 is based on a live performance art show on 06//11/02, live at Cafe Aloha in Chicago, Illinois. Studio recording as from this show were released on a compact disc (which you can order on the CD and Book Sale page); now it is finally released as a perfect-bound book, for only $7.95.     This book is now also available as a 7.1 meg (there are a lot of images in this book...) e-book (PDF file), so there are now so may ways you can enjoy the material from this presentation.

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introduction     After recovering from a near fatal car accident on seven eleven 1998, and after the World Trade Center towers were attacked on nine eleven 2001, I was asked to do a poetry show, on six eleven, 2002. But I didn’t want to stand in front of people and read poems for a while, so I searched for images to put into a PowerPoint presentation to play while I read. But then I thought that I didn’t want to sit and just read poems, so I searched for journal entries, and decided to write material exclusively for this show.     I knew I was going to tie the eleven theme together in this show, but I also searched for other things I loved and wanted to talk about. So I started the show with discussions about astronomy. I managed to cover writing about love and death, and I included personal writings about work, terrorism, and even my own recovery from the car accident.     A lot of the artwork in this first performance art show was also from old drawings of mine; so in this collection you will see a lot of old drawings of mine that appeared during the live show in Chicago.     This was the first performance art show that I did, where I started my quarterly performance art run, doing shows about every three months from 2002 through 2006. These shows were time to delve into many different aspects of my own psyche, but it was also a chance to share with people, and hopefully to teach people as well.     What you will see in this book are images and the writing from the 06//11/02 performance art show, but if you’d like to see color versions of the images inside this book, or if you would like to hear audio clips or see video from the 06//11/02 live show in Chicago, go to http://www.janetkuypers.com and click on “Performance Art.” There you can find the Six One One show, as well as other shows. NASA Project I’ve always loved astronomy. I’ve kept the telescope I had since I was a child, I remember tracking the motion of the stars to the horizon when I was six with my sister when she took a high school astronomy class, I’ve witnessed two comets, I’ve even had a star past the base of the constellation Cygnus named after me. I’ve studied black holes, tried to learn more about astrophysics, the whole nine yards. And I have noted that there are studies and possibly plans for NASA, after setting up the space station, may be planning a colony on the moon for inhabitants, as part of a test to study which would also entail the long-term-effects of a change in gravitation force on the human body. And I heard this, that there may be plans for this within the next twenty or thirty years, and I thought, my god, I am meant for this, I would be perfect for this. But then I thought, what would I do there, why would they want me there And I’m a journalist, I’ve written all my life, and I’m a designer, and my job would be to catalog what is going on at the colony and to distribute news to the colony about what is going on on the moon and maybe also even about what is going on on earth. And I liked this plan, it would seem fitting, give me occasional feeds through occasional transmittals of information for me to pass on to the colony, and I would catalog historically what is happening here for people on earth to learn from, this sounds like the perfect thing for me and then I though, wow, I would disseminate all information to this colony of people on the moon. I would be their only link to news. I could tell them anything. Just think about this for a moment: I could tell them anything and they wouldn’t be able to use another source to prove me wrong, I could tell them I sang the national anthem for the President, no really, I don’t have that bad of a voice, because we were leaving to live on the moon, and these people would believe me. I wonder if I had to write reports to send back to earth, would I have to tell them about the hypnotic effects of the earthlight, because, you know, everyone talks about how wonderful it is to be in the moonlight. But I don’t know if it is a good idea to have a restrained audience, people who had to listen to me, and then I started thinking: would I be able to bring my pet cat with me? Cause all I can think is that my cat would be taking leaps and they would be fifteen feet jumps, 10 feet in the air, you know, they probably wouldn’t let me bring a pet to the moon, but it’s still fun to think about the gravitational pull for them. Remember at the Planetarium how they would have scales for different planets so you could see how much you would weigh there because of different gravitational pulls? All the women liked weighing themselves on the moon because of the moon having one sixth the pull of earth they could look at a scale and say, “I weigh thirty-six pounds.” But then I suddenly started to think: I love the idea of seeing the stars from an entirely different angle, I wonder how they would accommodate for days that are twenty-eight earth days long on the moon, can you even imagine seeing the earth in the sky out there the way we look at the moon now, can you imagine it. You’d be there, unable to make any connection with people on earth at all, and would that be hard? The one thing I realized I’d miss so much about leaving earth for years would be not the traffic, or having to go to the grocery store or to a restaurant, but missing love. For the first time you’d be separated from your family, would my husband go with me, or would I have to live without the one person that meant the entire earth to me, would i have to learn to live without love. moonlight moonlight is a hypnotist putting people in a trance whenever you look at it it takes over your soul no one can stop it but no one wants to looking for a worthy adversary I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary someone I can lock horns with because although my life makes more sense when I’m alone it’s not nearly as interesting I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary someone I can battle to the death with because it can’t be about love, you see love can’t exist on the terms I demand it’s never that pure I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary and so I slither up to you like a snake as you sit there at the corner of the bar drinking your gin and tonics and I tempt you with a golden apple but all I was offering you was fruit from the tree of knowledge I didn’t know how willing you were to take from that tree I’m not used to that, you know Did you know you’d need to come back for more? Did you know what you were getting into? well, I didn’t know you’d have a thing or two to each me too and did I know I’d need to come back for more? Did I know what I was getting into? because as I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary all this time I’ve been playing a part an actress on a stage, spouting the lines on cue and that role was getting tiresome but those stage lights still came on night after night and I still had to play my part until on my night off I saw your performance at the theatre down the street and you know, your protagonist was doing what I was doing right down to faking it with people who don’t matter right down to going home and still feeling empty and you know, I liked to see that boiling emotion underneath that no one else could see because only I had the knowledge to know what that emotion really means and you know, I’m beginning to wonder if we can get together and write our own play it would be a masterful performance, you know and as that curtain would close we’d hold each other’s hands and walk off the stage and the audience would know that there is a happy ending and now when I walk out on to the set and there you stand, in front, stage left I wait for my cue to make my move none of the rest of the scene matters to me, you know maybe they’d like our little play, maybe they wouldn’t who really cares because even though I came to you and tempted you you now tempt me and tease me and torment me and tell me everything I was too afraid to believe and show me the knowledge that always escaped me and when you talk you reach your hand into my brain and pull out my thoughts and shove them into your mouth and spit them back at me and instead of filling me with terror it fills me with joy I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary and maybe you are much more than that I’ve heard the words you say to me before I’ve said them to myself many times but why do they sound so much better coming from you? I had been looking for a worth adversary someone I could lock horns with but now I’m no longer locking horns now it seems I don’t have to fight the battle alone now it seems that there’s no battle to fight we know what all the lines from our play really mean and now we’re performing for no one now we’re just ourselves and now there’s just understanding I don’t even have to speak and now every day is Valentine’s Day and now it’s like candy and flowers and springtime and hearts and cupids and sunshine and you know it’s scary these cleches are actually beginning to make sense I guess that’s what the tree of knowledge does to you so this is what has been going on in my mind and now I’ve just spilled my guts and now I’m just a puddle on the floor but now my performance of a lifetime is made I stand here like a statue and wait for my applause and as I wait for the reviews on the performance I was made for I know what they’re all going to say and none of that matters anymore because I know what you are going to say because it’s everything that I want to say because now it’s time for you to take my thoughts again and shove them into your mouth again and spit them back at me again and now I wait for you to come on stage again for our next wonderful performance where we have our happy ending where you tell me what I already know Work Journal One     At my job I’m hated for being good at my work and I’m hated for trying to make myself better. Everyone has given up here, so I have to pick up the pieces after them. Others scream because they don’t like hearing the answers I give to the questions they ask. They all just want me to do everything, and they want me to smile about it. No one can finish a job here; no one cares to. Then everyone wonders why I’m not happy here; then everyone thinks I’m overreacting. With my coworkers now there’s no sense of pride or else there’s an egoism coupled with a complete disregard for others. And the thing is, I hate the fact that people hate me when I’m right. I feel like I’ll have to settle for the rest of my life.     Settle for idiots telling me what to do. Settle for idiots hating me because I have pride. Settle for idiots loving me, idiots who don’t know why they love me.     I feel like I can’t be an optimist forever when the odds are continually stacked against me. I have nothing but my mind to help me with this fight, when everyone else is fighting me by shutting their minds off.     How do I live in the middle of a barren desert?     Remember and Get it straight, Janet - Keep telling this to yourself and maybe you’ll believe it: Whenever you’re at work, YOU’RE NEVER RIGHT. You’re overbearing, obnoxious, and you always think you’re right. All you have to do is follow orders. No one wants you to use your mind. Just follow the whims of everyone who wants to rule you. Don’t make waves. When they change their minds, don’t ask why. Always take the blame, especially when it’s not your fault. Always smile. Always be courteous. Always thank people, even if it’s for doing something they were responsible for. Especially thank them for that, because who are you to think that people should know or do anything? Who are you to think? why i’ll never get married at work we’ve been looking for a new employee we’ve sifted through resumes we’ve interviewed a few and some were good some were very good and we took some time to decide and then we called our #1 choice and they said they wanted more money than we offered so we said our goodbyes and we called our second choice and they said they couldn’t work at such a small place so someone at work said we should interview some more and that’s when i knew at the rate we were going we’d never find anyone and no one would want us Work Journal Two     A co-worker quit from the company I work for today. I work in an office with about thirty-five people. Now this co-worker was in charge of our trade shows and quit two days before our annual trade show was about to begin. Apparently she was at a meeting about the trade show and someone else started badgering her and twenty minutes after the meeting she was on the phone with her husband saying, “It’s been bad enough that every day after work I cry when I get home, but now I’m on the phone crying while I’m at work.” So her husband told her it’s okay if she wants to leave, they can work it out. So leave she did. She collected her things, said, “Fuck you all, I’m quitting,” and just... left.     Now I only got to hear about this scene second-hand, I didn’t actually see her or even get to say good-bye to her, and that’s a real shame because I probably would have shook her hand and thanked her for doing something that just about every person in our office has pretty much dreamt about on a daily basis. I mean, when I heard about what she did I let out a low, sadistic laugh, you know, one of those laughs that comes from really deep down, because we haven’t had one of those angry quitting scenes in a while, and believe me, they’re always fun to watch.     And I laughed like that because I know what she was going through and I know what a relief it must have been for her to do it.     She’s not the first person to do this to my boss, and I’m sure she won’t be the last. Once I saw a saleswoman walk right up to my boss in the hallway, get right up in his face, and tell him, “You’re an ass-hole. You have no idea how to run this business. You are incompetent, and so are your favorite employees. You make me sick. I quit.”     I’ve only been here four years, and I can tell I can’t take it here much longer, but in these past four years I’ve seen a turnover rate of like forty percent or something and the retraining alone puts too much stress on a staff... the Battle at Hand I wanted you to know that I was on a mission when I saw you and that I was a warrior and you were just a helpless victim that couldn’t fight my weaponry that wouldn’t fight my weaponry I would come in to town and pillage and rape and rape and pillage depending on how you put it and rape is such a hard word, you know, entirely inappropriate for this because I made sure that you wanted me before it was all over because I have a knack for doing that when I fight my battles this is how I care to think of you. I was on a conquest and i came fully equipped with ammunition I had bayonetts I had a rifle with rounds of bullets in a chain thrown over my shoulder I had a .22 calibur magazine loaded hand-gun I didn’t even need to use the hand-grenade or the tear gas even before i started using my tongue as a weapon with a kiss I used it as a weapon with words and I knew I had won you won over from the start you looked at me when I spoke and I think you might have actually wanted to listen to me and I would never have to resort to violence to get what I wanted from you we selsom had opportunities before and there wasn’t much of an opportunities here but we made one and we somehow made it work I know I wasn’t ready for a battle before but I want you to know that I came ready to fight and I didn’t care the circumstance or whether or not we had to be quiet because we wouldn’t want anyone to find out and no one did and no, it was not a monumentous moment in my life it was just a moment a conquest, a battle, and in my own mind, I won the war you still thought I was beautiful and that I was horny did I create a little monster in you? now I’m going to have to re-arm myself and use my stockade of defenses to push you away but that is the cost of winning battles all the time, I guess you thought I would always want you and you know, I liked winning the battle, but I’ll have to work again so that you don’t come back to haunt me because we weren’t meant to be anything to each other and you were just a conquest for me a battle won people thought we would never get along. but I know better I know there is no such thing as NOT getting along with me and I know I can make anyone like me as I did with you you were easy prey, you know. The Effects of Nine One One     Today is June Eleventh, exactly 9 months after the September 11 crashes.     It’s strange, has everyone even thought about the fact that the terrorists decided to destroy greatness on nine one one?     It’s strange, how close I came to losing friends and family:     my friend didn’t happen to go to the Trade Center on business that week,     my brother-in-law lost a slew of contacts who died in New York,     the Pennsylvania plane landed a mile from my sister-in-law’s house,     my friend in D.C. wasn’t hurt but he talked about how different streets would be closed on different days and that there were so many military guard there you felt like you were in a war zone,     which in a way, you were.     And these terrorists, they had a masterful plan, they were stopped that day from starting different flights, and one of them was slated, I think, to sun into the Sears Tower.     I mean, think about the emotional effects of these disasters. I know different people had different reactions...     I know that for months afterward whenever we were driving toward the loop, taking the kennedy where you could see the Chicago skyline get closer and closer, I know that every time we drove by, I would be sitting in the passenger seat and I would imaging seeing a plane fly right into the side of the Sears Tower, toward the top, to the side, exactly like how it happened to the World Trade Centers. Like how you saw it over and over again on television, when we were flooded with images of it on the news. I’d see a plane flying right into the tallest building, this landmark to Chicago.     I still see that sometimes, whenever we are driving into the city,     imagining witnessing the destruction,     seeing it all,     and thinking,     what do you do then? new to chicago I’m still new to this city I know, I know, I’ve been here for years but I haven’t gone to the Sears Tower Observatory since my Junior Prom but when I walk by the First Chicago building the beams along the north side sloping up, parabolic pillars curving up to the sky when I walk by the First Chicago building I walk up along the side and lean up against one of the sloping pillars press my body against the cold concrete feel the cold against my chin, my breasts, by thighs and look up along the curve, stretching up towards the sky you know, these pillares look like race tracks and I could see something come rushing down that curve a matchbox car, a race car a marble, a bowling ball a two-ton weight I see the seed, the power, and it almost makes me afraid to look up and every time I walk by the First Chicago building I do the same thing, I do this little ritual and it feels like the first time

The Burning

I take the final swig of vodka
feel it burn it’s way down my throat
hiss at it scorching my tongue
and reach for the bottle to pour myself another.
I think of how my tonsils scream
every time I let the alcohol rape me.
Then I look down at my hands --
shaking -- holding the glass of poison --
and think of how these were the hands
that should have pushed you away from me.
But didn’t. And I keep wondering
why I took your hell, took your poison.
I remember how you burned your way
through me. You corrupted me
from the inside out, and I kept coming back.
I let you infect me, and now you’ve
burned a hole through me. I hated it.
Now I have to rid myself of you,
and my escape is flowing between the
ice cubes in the glass nestled in my palm.
But I have to drink more. The burning
doesn’t last as long as you do.

Right There, By Your Heart

I

i had a dream the other night that i was in a
bathroom, sitting on the toilet seat, i think it was
the one in florida, but it could have been anywhere.
it was a small bathroom. i was stretched over
this seat, and i think the lid was up. i was naked. there
was a wall right next to me, and i felt cramped,
like i couldn’t move. and then kurt was there, with me,
in the bathroom, naked, standing over me, screwing me.
i was sitting on a toilet seat and he was fucking me,
and in the entire dream i couldn’t get comfortable,
i felt very awkward, it felt like he was pressing
on my chest, i couldn’t breathe, it felt like there was a rock
in my stomach that would stay there forever, but
the entire time i didn’t complain.

II

have you ever had that feeling before, you
know, the one when someone is telling
you something you don’t want to hear, like
if someone was about to tell you that someone
died and you knew what they were going to say
and you still didn’t want to hear it, or if
someone did something to you you didn’t like,
like when you were little and the kids at the
bus stop shot pebbles and spit balls at you every
day because you were smart and you still had
to go to the bus stop every morning and just
try to ignore them? and when that happens
it feels like a medium sized rock just fell
into the bottom of your stomach, and you
don’t want to move because you’re afraid
that the rock will hurt the inside of your stomach
and so you just have to sit there and hope
the rock goes away? or else you get the feeling
in your chest, right between your lungs, it feels
like someone is pressing against the bone there,
right there by your heart, and you’ve got to
breathe, you’re not going to be able to take
that pressure, that force any longer?

III

it had already been a long day, sitting in the back
of someone else’s car for two and a half hours,
knowing that if elaine’s dad wasn’t such a slow driver
it would have taken less than two hours. I was trying to get
home so i could make it on time for the christmas party
but still have enough time to pack for my early
flight the next morning. airports have become a second
home to me. so i walked in through the melon doors
only three hours late, those melon doors that scream
of the perfect fifties home, of the perfect fifties family
that everyone believed we were. i walked through the
doors, sarah hugged me, and dad walked into the
hallway from the kitchen. wait a minute. he was
supposed to be on the other side of the country... well,
don’t ask questions, just act happy to see him. so i smiled
and laughed, until he hugged me. then the rock settled
in. he didn’t have to say a word. my mind started
going through the checklist: okay, what would have
brought him back here? who was the one who had died?
i said ’grandma’ before he did. i cried for fifteen
minutes, wiped the tears from my neck, my ears, and
i got ready for the party, trying not to move too quickly,
so not to disturb the rock.

IV

i got the mail, like i do any other day, and by then i had
almost forgotten about waiting for the test results. i
was just getting the mail, like normal. when i saw the
letter from the hospital that day in that little metal
box the pressure on my chest came rushing back like
wind when it rushes around the side of a building and
it takes you entirely by surprise and you lose your
breath trying to live through it. what if the test results
said i was sick, and i wasn’t going to get any better?
i had too many symptoms, the results had to show
something. something, damnit. maybe if i never
opened the letter, i’d never have to deal with
illness. maybe then i’d live forever. but i opened the
letter. it said the doctors still know nothing. i
just wanted to know what was wrong with
me. why i wasn’t perfect. the pressure on my
chest didn’t go away when i threw the envelope
on the ground by the mailbox. i walked upstairs.

V

i needed to talk to someone, so i threw my bathrobe on the
floor, pulled on some sweats, and walked over to his
apartment. steve was supposed to be coming home
from work soon, and i needed to talk to somebody,
i couldn’t keep everything bottled in. i must have looked
like an idiot standing on his stairs looking like i
was about to cry. i felt like an idiot there, too, not
knowing why the rock in my stomach wasn’t going away.
i wanted to ask him if he ever felt that rock, felt
that pressure, even if there didn’t seem to be a
reason for it at all except for maybe life itself, which
everyone was supposed to manage through
anyway, i mean, everyone has stress, what’s your
problem if you can’t take it? i wanted to figure it out,
whatever the hell it was that was bothering me, i
really wanted to. this panic was driving me crazy, and i
couldn’t even explain why i was panicked in the first
place. i didn’t tell him i wanted to light a candle and some
incense and just curl up in the corner of my bed,
holding one of my pillows, probably the black one,
and cry for a very long time. i sat there in his
apartment when he got home, but i didn’t speak. what
could i say? that the rock in my stomach wasn’t going
away?

VI

i don’t know how many times the idea of seeing him
went through my mind. at least once a week i’d imagine
a scene where he’d confront me, and i’d somehow
be able to fight him back, to show him that he didn’t
bother me any more, to show him that the rock wasn’t
there any more. to somehow be able to prove that
i wasn’t a victim any more. i was a survivor. that’s
what they call it now, you see, survivor, because
victim sounds too trying for someone who has been
raped. so i keep saying i’m over it but i keep imagining
mark all over again, not raping me, but following me
on the street, coming to my door with flowers, or
sending me a valentine. but once, when i saw him
walking out of a record store as i was walking in, the
rock fell so hard that i thought i was going to be sick
right there by the cash register, right there by those
metal things at the doorway that beep when you
try to take merchandise out of the store, you know
what those things are, i just can’t think of what
they’re called. but if i did that, then he’d know he was still
winning, to this day. how many years has it been? how
many years since he did that to me? how many years
since i’ve been wanting to fight him, since i’ve been
feeling that rock in my god-damned stomach?
i managed to hide my face from him in the store so he
didn’t see me as he walked out. when i saw he was
gone, i wondered why i still felt the pressure in my
chest. i thought the pressure was going to turn
my body inside-out. i reached for my heart, grabbed
at my shirt. maybe the pain was always there, right there,
by my heart, but i try not to think of it until i
go through times like those.

Death takes many forms.

Death takes many forms.
For you, death first came when you were five years old
and your mother had to give you three shots of insulin a day
until you could take a needle to yourself.
Did it hurt to push that needle into your arm, the first time?
Or did it hurt you more to know you had no choice?

Death takes many forms.
Death can be someone telling you without trying
that they are losing their sight.
Behind coke-bottle glasses you would see me and say,
"That’s a nice black suit you’re wearing."
And I would tell you, "It’s green."
And you wouldn’t believe me.
You wouldn’t hear the howling wind of the changing seasons.

Death takes many forms.
I know what follows the autumn wind.
It is winter now.
Do you remember when it happened?
The changes are subtle, the temperature drops,
first only slightly. It’s almost imperceptible.
Only when the first snow falls do you realize
where the seasons have gone.

Death takes many forms.
Death can be a sweat-soaked shirt, the shakes, dizziness
when you needed food.
You would look as pale as a ghost
as I would hold your cold wet arm and steady you.
Quick, some sugar will make everything better.
Isn’t everything better yet?

Death takes many forms.
The signs of death can come
when you lose your circulation.
"My feet are numb, Janet," you’d say.
"I can’t feel my feet anymore."
And I would rub your feet for you,
and you would say it makes a difference,
you feel better.

If only I could do this forever.

Death takes many forms.
I said good bye to you to travel my own road
but I didn’t think it was the last good bye.
How was I to know?

When I left, I knew you didn’t want me to go.
And now it’s my turn.

Why are we always saying good bye to each other?

Are you trying to teach me a lesson?
Because if you are, well,
I’ve learned it. Trust me, I have.
You can come back now.

Death takes many forms.
And now, now it seems
you’ve taken me down with you
you’ve taken me into that casket with you
and I’m running my hand along your jacket lapel
and I can feel the coldness of winter all around me
and I can hear them shoveling the dirt over my head
and I want to get out
and I want to take you with me.

Death takes many forms.
Death can be that hole you left,
you know, right over here, just a little to the left.
I keep wondering when the pain will go away.
When will everything be better.

You once showed me that winter could be beautiful.
Instead of the dark and dirty snow lacing the city streets
you showed me a quieting snowfall,
over a lake at your parent’s back yard
glistening in an untouched whiteness.
I told you I hated winters
and you told me, "This you don’t hate."

Well, I’m still learning.

It is winter now.
And death takes many forms.
The seasons change for you and I.
It is snowing. And something is ending.
It is snowing. Somewhere
it is snowing.

Seven One One Part One

    Dave, after I dated him for a year and a half, was the gentleman who died.
    I was traveling when he died and was unable to go to his funeral.
    I never saw him lying in the casket, {where the undertakers had to sew his lips together,} maybe I needed to see him so I could really say goodbye.

    Because four months later,
    on seven eleven,
    I almost died in a car accident, unconscious for eleven days, had severe skull fractures.
    After losing my car, my home and my health, all I could do was try to recover.

    They even called me Elvira Doe in the hospital because they couldn’t find any identification, which was buried under the seat of my totaled car.

    But while in the hospital I kept imagining Dave coming to visit me, he came in through another hospital entrance
    so no one saw him
    and no one knew he was alive, and he was
    there for me.
    And I wasn’t alone.

    I felt so alone in the hospital all those weeks, maybe it was my brain’s way of trying to fill in all the unexplained gaps in my life.

    While recovering I even imagined my friend Brian, who now lives in San Francisco,
    Dressing up in old woman’s clothing and staying in the room like a patient with me so I wouldn’t be alone.
    And no, he was never in the hospital,
    and yes, I shared my hospital room with an old woman who was a patient I had never met before,
    and no, I never even talked to this lady,

    While recovering I even hallucinated that I was in my apartment and not in a hospital bed
    Because I REFUSED to believe that ANYTHING was wrong with me.

death is a dog

when you want it to heal,
well, it never does
and it never rolls over
and it never plays dead

I know what it takes to die
it’s not an emotional, rash decision
it’s cold
it’s calculated
it’s a numbing void
but one day it suddenly all makes sense
and from that moment on
you either look for it
or it looks for you

Death is an untrained little bitch
and I’ve been begging for it, I tell you
but it doesn’t come when you call

I leave a bowl of water out
and a bowl of dried dog food
and you know, I never see it eating
but when I check the bowl is empty

and I still refill the bowl

and vacuum the dog hair
that sticks to the couch
and spray air freshener
in the living room
because no matter how hard you try
you can never get rid of the smell

Death is an untrained little bitch, I tell you
and what it boils down to is this:
you won’t get along with her
and she won’t get along with you

she’ll claim her territory
under the bed,
eating your slipper,
while you try to sleep
and remind yourself
that there are no monsters
waiting for you
to shut your eyes

Seven One One Part Two

    I was in pain all the time, painkillers didn’t help, my back was sore, my head ALWAYS hurt, my sinuses were terrible. I wanted the Hell out of the hospital but I couldn’t take the first steps to do it. I could barely even stand. They strapped me in my bed at night,
    and once I contorted my way out of the harness, wrapped it up and set it on the nightstand; the nurses thought it was strange that the straps were next to my bed,
    and when my mother
saw how the harness was wrapped, she KNEW that I had to have done it.

    I had to fight every step of the way in that hospital. Three different doctors viewing my records even knick named me “miracle girl”, but learning to walk was no miracle to me,
    I just had to work harder to prove everyone wrong and try to get my life back.

Changing Garments

Agonies are
one of my changes of garments,

I do not ask the wounded person
how he
feels
or
who he
is

I myself become the wounded person,
My hurts turn livid upon me
as I lean on a cane and observe

Seven One One Part Three

I don’t need to eat
I haven’t been eating this entire time in here
(Eating is really overrated, what do I need it for)
So when they told me I could eat
I didn’t.
They offered breakfast and I told them no.
They offered lunch and I told them no.
And by the time dinner came along
my stomach was making more noise than I was
(I think it started a language of its own)

So being a vegetarian I got an egg sandwich
and then I was faced with this task I didn’t know how to undertake.
I had to rationalize it to myself.
You’ve eaten before, I told myself, you can do it again.
I know it seems foreign to you, but you can do it.
    Put some food on the fork, put it in your mouth, remove the fork, start chewing, and then just swallow it. You can do this. I had to talk myself through every step, the first bite was the strangest thing to me, I ate only half of the food,
But I did it.
I know that once I got used to eating I ate ravenously, but
The next morning they offered food and I ate an egg sandwich again and I had to tell myself,
You did this yesterday, Janet.
I had to goad myself into eating again.

King of the Universe

Seven One One Part Four

    My sister started a journal while I was in the hospital for people to write in. My father, who never writes, wrote down while I was still unconscious,
    I squeeze your hand
    But you don’t squeeze back
    But I still love you
    And my roommate, a man I dated and loved, was the first to write in the journal, and he wrote that he remembered me telling him just before the accident that I had written about a car accident, that he was a fantastic car crash,
    And he wrote,
    But it was supposed to be ME.

fantastic car crash

and most of the time we’re just moving
in a straight line, and the scenery
blurs. there’s nothing to see

but I know what’s inside you and I
know what you’re made of. I know
there’s no such thing as a calm with you

you are a fantastic car crash. you stop
traffic in both directions as the gapers gawk and
the delay grows and they slow down and stare

everything shatters with you, you know.
it’s a spectacular explosion. I try
to duck and cover as metal flies

through the air. and every time you leave
the scene of the accident
I am left picking up the shards of glass

from the windows. you know, the glass breaks
into such tiny little pieces. they look like
ice. it takes so long to pick up the pieces

even though I’m careful
I’m still picking up the pieces
and I’m still on my knees

and the glass cuts into my hands
and the blood drips down to the street.
think of it as my contribution

to this fantastic car crash
that is you, that is me, that is us
as I pull the glass from my hands

and I wave my hand to the line of traffic:
go ahead, keep driving, this happens
all the time, there’s nothing to see here

About the Author

    Janet Kuypers graduated from the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana with a degree in News/Editorial Communications Journalism (with computer science engineering studies). She had a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. In the early 1990s she was an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and edited to two literary magazines.
    Since she got fed up with her job as the art director of a few magazines for a publishing company, Janet Kuypers, to relieve the stress:
    (a) vents her twenty-something angst musically with acoustic bands called Mom’s Favorite Vase, Weeds and Flowers and the Second Axing, and attempts to learn to play the guitar,
    (b) writes so much that she irritates editors enough to get her published in books, magazines and on the internet over 8,800 times for writing or over 17,000 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and DiscoverU and has been interviewed on ArtistFirst dot com’s Internet radio station, and has repeatedly been highlighted with interviews and readings for years with WZRD 88.3 FM radio in Chicago,
    (c) turns that writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D and Order From Chaos,
    (d) writes so much that in order to make her feel like a big shot she gets ten books published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide to Feminism, Contents Under Pressure, Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), and etc.
    (e) gets tired of thinking about her own pathetic life, so runs a non-profit publishing company, where she does internet work and book design, and edits a literary and art magazine so she can read and broadcast other people’s depressing stories,
    (f) performs spoken word and music, both locally and across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam, in 2003 she hosted and performed weekly at a poetry and music open mic called Sing Your Life, starting in 2002 she was a featured performer, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images, in 2005 she started monthly iPodCasts and an Internet radio station of her work,
    or (g) all of the above.
    When doing all of that didn’t work, Janet decided to quit her job and travel around the United States and Mexico, writing travel journals (collected into a book called Changing Gears) and starting her first epic novel (The Key To Believing). She also released a final collection of poetry called Oeuvre, a final collection of prose called Exaro Versus, and an art book called L’arte.
    But after that work wasn’t enough, she thought she would try to get her life back into order by moving across the country once or twice, getting married and getting a house with fireplaces, a jacuzzi and a sauna. After venturing to Puerto Rico, to nine European countries (Germany, Austria, Italy, the Vatican City, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland), and to China (Shanghai and Beijing), Kuypers thought she would (because she’s psycho on never being at rest) do more design work, master compact discs and Performance Art shows in Chicago, and yes, have more books of hers published. Doesn’t she know how to rest?