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

Listen: (3:45) to this recording from Fusion Or order any track from the CD Fusion off of iTunes...

Listen (3:08, recorded 04/13/08) to either mix (2:49 withy a cool alternate voice effect, recorded 04/13/08) sampled by the DMJ Art Connection

Watch this YouTube video (2:17) read 12/07/10, live at the Café in Chicago

Watch this YouTube video live at Waiting 4 the Bus at Café Ballou in Chicago 08/01/11

Watch this YouTube video of 3 death-related poems (including this one) live at Waiting 4 the Bus at Café Ballou in Chicago 08/01/11

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem The Things They Did To You live 9/18/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem The Things They Did To You live 9/18/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (S)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem The Things They Did To You live 1/6/16 at Rad Radam Open Stage in Austin TX (from a Nikon Cool Pix S7000).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem The Things They Did To You live 1/6/16 at Rad Radam Open Stage in Austin TX (Canon Power Shot).

See YouTube video 7/8/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her poem The Things They Did To You, then sings her song What we Need in Life (with her poem Fantastic Car Crash inside) in the 2nd round at the Austin installment (at her house) of the Poetry Plus open mic 7/8/16 (filmed w/ a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video 7/8/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her poem The Things They Did To You, then sings her song What we Need in Life (with her poem Fantastic Car Crash inside) in the 2nd round at the Austin installment (at her house) of the Poetry Plus open mic 7/8/16 (filmed w/ a Sony camera).

The Things They Did To You (written October 13, 1998; edited April 4, 2008) when you hear that you were so close to death you don’t think about it, you feel fine, you couldn’t have been that bad. But you were on a respirator to breathe for you while the doctors just hoped and waited for you to start breathing again. And you couldn’t eat, you were unconscious for days, so they gave you food through a tube that went straight to your stomach. You’ve got the scar on your stomach to prove it, where the tube came out of your body. There is a piece of metal in your body that the doctors put in there in case you had blood clots that tried to move through your arteries to your heart or lungs or brain. Granted, their being kind to place that vena cava filter in your body now means an MRI you might need in the future to help you will only kill you with that vena cava metal filter in your body, but they say they were doing everything only in your best interest. They had an intracranial pressure monitor surgically attached to your head so they could measure if there was too much pressure on your brain. Yeah, I suppose it was fair to say that you almost died, but you’re fine now. At least no one will tell you that, but I’m sure you know that by now. What does it feel like to be almost dead? If you had to think about your own life, and what it meant to you and to other generations, would any of this surgery matter? Well, you wouldn’t be dead, I guess. But what if you were no longer here, on this planet, what if you were not alive? Would anyone miss you? Would anyone write poems about you, or cry for you? Well, people might get used to the fact that you were gone. Time heals all wounds, as they say. You, if you were thinking about it after you were gone, you’d still be angry, I’m sure. That doesn’t go away. It never does. Get used to it. Copyright Janet Kuypers. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission.