poem “One who Has Too Much”, a poem about material wealth but having nothing inside of you because your soul has been crushed, By Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

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

See YouTube video 1/22/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems One who Has Too Much & or my happiness, or my life, and Holding Hands (from her book Let me see you Stripped) at the Round Rock Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).

See YouTube video 1/22/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems One who Has Too Much & or my happiness, or my life, and Holding Hands (from her book Let me see you Stripped) at the Round Rock Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s (this video was filmed from a Nikon Cool Pix S7000 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr).

See YouTube video 7/17/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems White Knuckled from her book Rape, Sexism, Life & Death, One who Has Too Much from the cc&d July/August 2017 issue v264 book Being Real, and The Dream at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (w/ a Canon Power Shot).

See YouTube video 7/17/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems White Knuckled from her book Rape, Sexism, Life & Death, One who Has Too Much from the cc&d July/August 2017 issue v264 book Being Real, and The Dream at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (w/ a Sony camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Unique Noise”, “One who Has Too Much” and “Exhaling Toxic Fumes” from her book “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” 8/6/17 at “Recycled Reads” open mic, at a book store affiliated with the Austin Public Library (Sony).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Unique Noise”, “One who Has Too Much” and “Exhaling Toxic Fumes” from her book “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” 8/6/17 at “Recycled Reads” open mic, at a book store affiliated with the Austin Public Library (Lumix).

One who Has Too Much
Janet Kuypers
1/9/16
People may have looked her way
and thought,
wait a minute,
she’s had it made all along,
she got ahead at work,
she made a ton of money,
she traveled around the country,
and yeah, they tried to kill her
but after it’s over
she found herself a man
(isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?)
and she was running the poetry scene
in one of the biggest cities in the country
(and don’t you dare tell me
it’s the Second City,
because that only shows
what an East Coast snob you are
and you don’t know a thing about architecture,
or diversity,
or caring about your fellow man)
so...
so even though she’s been
ripped from her roots,
I mean,
what the Hell,
she’s got everything she materially wants.
As they said in the ‘80s,
what’s her damage?
I wonder how she’d answer.
I’m sure she’d probably say
you might be right
and he was
and is
the perfect person for me,
and it’s a shame
that it took almost dying
to force me
to find him.
But then she’d think,
don’t think for a second
that I’m the woman
who has too much.
Sure, we can complain
that we lost most of our savings
because of the crash after the Internet boom,
but I lost my soul before then.
What do I have too much of?
I have too much anger.
I have too much angst.
I have too much depression,
because if you think you have it all...
You don’t.
If you have it all
you can also have
what everyone else doesn’t want
and you can live with that torture
all your life
as you look around
and wonder
why everyone wonders
why you look so sad
when you seem to have it all.
#
Well, you’re right
I do have it all,
I have the pain
of a thousand soldiers
running toward an enemy
they don’t understand
being told to kill
when it’s against their will —
but this is their only choice.
And even if
I didn’t see the slaughter
trust me,
I went through the recovery
for far too many months
for far too many years,
and I’m still recovering
from something
that someone else
did to me,
and for some reason,
I have to be the one
who always has to
atone.
Maybe you don’t understand
because you don’t realize
what you already have.
Because even when you have it all,
someone
somewhere
can take apart your body
against your will
while you try to piece your mind together
and make sense of what you have left.

my hand to an anim of jkchair