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


video videonot yet rated
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Take It All Away 4/24/16 at Chicago’s 2016 Poetry Bomb at Bagdad Cemetery in Leander Texas (filmed with a Canon Power Shot camera).
video videonot yet rated
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Take It All Away 4/24/16 at Chicago’s 2016 Poetry Bomb at Bagdad Cemetery in Leander Texas (filmed with a Sony camera).

take it all away

September 19, 1998

What is it like to be
almost on the verge of death

for a long time
I know
that seems like a silly
question
is it pointless to
actually go through it and life
for a brief moment to know
what it’s like to almost fly

I found out weeks after I
was in the hospital
it was
then that I found out little
details about my being in the
hospital
what the
doctor did to me

while I was in there
and unconscious

whether or not
they were helping me or
hurting me
I wouldn’t have known
I was unconscious

they put a piece
of metal in my chest to stop
future possible blood clots from
travelling to my heart, or lungs,
or brain

I don’t know
if I need one of these pieces of metal
in my body for the rest of my life,

but I can never get it out
and it would have been nice if
someone informed me of this after it
had already been done to me

there can be
all sorts of things done to you
when you are at a weak moment
these things being done
to you could have an effect on you

good or bad

X-rays were taken of me
a ventilator was on me for 6 days
All I knew at the time was that
most of my rights were being taken
away from me
and I didn’t have my car
and I couldn’t live at home

I mean, what if one day something went
wrong in your body, and while you
were laying in bed to take a nap, your
heart just stopped beating

what would happen to you
and your life if you heart just
went out, and then something just
happened and then almost suddenly,
what if just then you were slipping away

Okay, don’t use that example, but maybe
it will help you think about what it
must be like to vanish

What if that happened to you

if something shocking just sort of
happened to you
and you made it just fine
and people were worrying about
you and they thought you might
not make it and they had to think
that you may be gone and they

had to come to terms with that

Would you clean up
your room
Would you stop making
all of the frivolous purchases
on things you don’t really need
Would you try to be nicer

It answers
so many questions when you
suddenly start to think of things that way

###

take it all away (edited)


I found out weeks after
it was then that I found out details

they put a piece of metal in my body
to stop blood clots

do I need a piece of metal
in my body for the rest of my life,

X-rays were taken of me
a ventilator was on me for 6 days
All I felt was that most of my rights
were taken from me


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