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Best Poems Written by Kc Kennings

Below are the all-time best Kc Kennings poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

12 Steps

Step 1: Admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable.
But I admitted that long before your lips knew my name.
I shook hands with the darkness and deals had already been made.

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
By that point it was easy to see that I believed even a 12 watt light bulb burnt out still held more power than I did

Step 3: Prayed to any God that would listen and hoped they checked their voice-mail regularly.

Step 4: Pieced together the butterfly wings and dimes from dark alleyways. Pinned red string between the people we used to be and these more recent newspaper clippings.

Step 5: Admitted to the 12 watt light bulb, to ourselves, and to the only other person we could trust the depths of our confessional.
I watched her lips entranced as they moved in the mirror.

Step 6: Said enough. I dug out old running shoes and stole your shoe laces. The ones they wouldn't let you have beyond the locked white doors.

Step 7: I humbly asked the 12 watt light bulb to go off over my head for 's sake just once.

Step 8: They told me you made a list of all those you'd harmed. I wonder how many times you wrote my name, and at which point you finally wrote yours.

Step 9: I guess you didn't make it this far because my voice-mail still sits silent.

Step 10: I laced up those shoes and ran. Fast and Far. Kept taking Step after Step until my ribs screamed for air and I could finally laugh again.

Step 11: I changed out that 12 Watt for one that glows steady.

Step 12: I bask in the glow of the new light without the fear of the darkness I outran. The closet monsters can't touch me now. No darkness is more frightening than my own, and deals have already been made.

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

Extinguisher

When I was 19 years old
I collapsed on my twin size collegiate bed
With my head in my hands
And I sobbed
Because for the first time in my shallow existence 
My carefully curated victim complex was shattered 
And I realized 
I
Was not a good person

Cross my heart and hope to die
Because I chose to screw my face in a permanent sneer at anyone who dared to get to close for my comfort zone

I wore my pain like armor 
Without realizing 
...that 
was heavy ...

And the walls I put up became my isolation chamber

And in a crowd of friends I was alone
Pity party for 1

And we can pit past against past
And play the world's longest game of
Who had it worse
And I though I was self-assured the gold medal in one-up-manship

But I was just smothering daisies 
Trying desperately to grow in the black tar cracks in my heart 

Running from sunshine

Still believing I'd find someone to be my light in the darkness I loved

As though it wasn't horrendously selfish
To expect my poor unfortunate soulmate to be the crutch I was hell bound to crush 

As though I could keep extinguishing the lights of others because I wanted my nights blackest black

Because life's colors hurt my eyes

Because the pain was comfortable when it was bottled up and binge drank like moonshine

I had become the world's best extinguisher 
Sour-faced joy-sucker
Begging for a light in my darkness 
Then snuffing it out again and again 
Always expecting someone else to 
Re-light it

And I'm here selling my soul to this microphone because I know I'm not the only professional extinguisher 
And it takes one to know one

So if you find yourself 
On a twin-sized bed with your head in your hands sobbing
Know

That dark
 will always lead to dawn
And you can learn to love yourself with the lights on

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

Guilt

Why can't I exist 
Without feeling guilty for
the space I take up?

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

This Land Is Your Land But With a Quarter Life Crisis

This life is my life
Why is this my life
So I shout YOLO 
Maybe I'll try van life
Cause escapism
And romanticizing 
Are all that's really driving me

And maybe one day
I'll really do it
I'll quit my job and
I'll get right to it
Because they told me
That time is money 
So right now I'm rich as I can be

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

My Country Tis of Thee But Relatable

I have anxiety 
I can't sit quietly 
Inside my brain

Cause part of it is fried
And part of me has died
I said "I'm fine" I lied
I am in pain

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

On Content Warnings

There are some poems we are just not ready to write
The wound is still too fresh for us to take notes from the light of it
And our pencil tips aren't sharp enough to stitch us up just yet

When we spill our sins in ink
We pray with stained hands
Leave indigo fingerprints saying this is who I am,
who I have been,
and every me I can become

I was told that as a wordsmith
My job was simply this
Take every human experience
Sum it up with pretty syllables
Paint vibrant pictures in black and white
And at the end of the night
You'll be paid in the stories others give you in exchange for your own
And it will be worth more than gold to you

But there are some stories we are just not ready to tell.
And perhaps that's the reason I have developed a nasty habit of redacting every dictionary I've met
Permanent marker scratching out the words "guilt" and "shame" until they bleed black like the only four letter word I can't even read

There are some poems I can't bring myself to recite
Because when I spilled my pain on those pages it was to realse the breath I've been holding since 19
And to take to a stage and
Sum it up with pretty syllables
Paint vibrant pictures in black and white
Does not yield golden stories
Those words take flight from my mouth like moths 
stirring up settled dust

Have you ever seen the way a four letter word can desaturate a vibrant smile
I've watched women turn to ghosts as they phantom fade into their seats and the life leaves their eyes as they battle back pasts violently brought present without warning

But even if I did adequately announce the nature of the content
it's not like I've done them any favors,
Because standing up to retreat is as good as a confessional of that secret held pain barely worthy of being kept by loved ones let alone strangers
Quietly putting on their masks so others won't see the way they bite the inside of their cheeks until they taste like my 2 cents

Count the stories on that building
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Find something Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Purple is always the hardest

5 things I see
4 things I hear
3 things I feel 
TERROR
ANGER
numb

Come back!
Screaming inside while trying to maintain an otherwise calm demeanor.
Locked out of my lovely night
Flipping through a set of grounding technique keys trying to remember which one unlocks my "safe calm place"
Blank face counting my way back to the present.

Because there are some poems I was just not ready to hear.

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

The Pledge of Allegiance But Accurate

I pledge allegiance 
To my job
And to the 40 hour work week
And to the taxes
I must pay
Until one day
I retire 
Feeling miserable 
With a bad back
And most my good years gone

Details | Kc Kennings Poem

Monsters

Do not speak to me of freedoms lost
Until you have watched
A mother drop to her knees
And scream so loud
it comes out silent 
And it is deafening 
Because even though there is no breath 
Left in her to carry the sound 
Everything decibel of her grief 
wraps itself around your throat 
as you try desperately to remain serene 
Knowing after that door is closed 
Your news delivered 
She will stare into a dark closet for hours
Wishing she could protect her baby 
from the monsters out here as easily as the ones in there.

Best Poems Written by Kc Kennings

Let's Play Pretend

In Parts

12 Steps

Extinguisher

Guilt

This Land Is Your Land But With a Quarter Life Crisis

My Country Tis of Thee But Relatable

On Content Warnings

The Pledge of Allegiance But Accurate

Monsters