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Watch this YouTube video
Live at Waiting4the Bus
in Chicago 05/18/09
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Watch this YouTube video
of part 1 of the poem live at Waiting4the Busin Chicago 05/18/09
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Watch this YouTube video
of part 2 of the poem live at Waiting4the Busin Chicago 05/18/09
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Watch this YouTube video
of part 2 of the poem live at Waiting4the Busin Chicago 05/18/09
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 1/21/17 reading her poems “Quivering against the Invading Enemy”, “This Isn’t Fair”, and “I Never Took a Life Until I Took My Own” at the “Poetry Aloud” open mic at the Georgetown Public Library (video filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 1/21/17 reading her poems “Quivering against the Invading Enemy”, “This Isn’t Fair”, and “I Never Took a Life Until I Took My Own” at the “Poetry Aloud” open mic at the Georgetown Public Library (this video was filmed from a Sony camera).

I never took a life
until I took my own

three poems

I
“the leader”

I never took a life
until I took my own

because you see, I
never took my own life
in my own hands before

And how can you really
control someone else
if you can’t control
yourself? and when I
figured that much out,
well, then, taking the
rest of them was easy

Everyone loved me
everyone wanted to follow
me, and everyone thought
I was something great
I must be a god

How does she have
it all together
how does she know
what to do
why does she seem so happy
what’s her secret

No one understood
that they have to take
their lives
from the people
who try to run them
for them

And if they understood
this little fact
then no one would have
understood how to
take their lives back

and how do you explain
the color blue
to a blind man?

II
“the martyr”

I never took a life
until I took my own

I never had the power
to pull people in
to make people react
but when I decided
it was my time
boy, I left a legacy
behind, I became
a hero, and oh, the
masses loved me then

They scratched my name
into their arm
with a pin, a knife
or a fountain pen,
they cried in my honor,
they went to my gravesite
and left roses, scratched
crosses on my
tombstone, drank with
me and left half-empty
flasks on saturday nights

But it’s funny how
they only loved me,
held me as their idol
after I slain myself,
after I was gone

III
“the lost”

I never took a life
until I took my own

I never wanted
to be on this earth
I never wanted
any part of it

I never had the courage
to kill the killers
I never wanted
to play their game

but I guess I have

I never wanted to
take a life
but I should have
control over my
own destiny and if
I don’t want to be
here, well, I should
have that right

and this one thing
Iv’e done
is the first thing
I’ve ever done for
myself in my life

The line “I never took a life until I took my own” was a title of a poem by Ray Young.
“How do you explain the color blue to a blind man” is from the poem “Doctor” by Janet Kuypers.
Scratching my name into their arms with a fountain pen is a reference to “Rusholme Ruffians” by Steven Morrissey.
Scratching crosses on tombstones refers to a ceremony often conducted on Marie LeVeau’s tombstone in New Orleans.


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