Jean Rhys

By Ellen Kennedy b. 1989 Ellen Kennedy

I'm preparing myself for an extended period of loneliness

That will begin very soon I think

I've illegally downloaded two new depressing songs

I've placed a copy of Good Morning, Midnight under my pillow for easy reference

I've printed out the tablature for every Morrissey song I know so I can sing them to myself

Alone in my room

Just a few things are needed really

To make me calm

While I figure out a simple, clean, and effective way to kill myself,

With minimal stress for the person who has to find and dispose of my body

But I'll probably never think of a way

Because I'll probably never kill myself

I'll just lie in my bed suffocating myself with my pillows

While listening to the four songs you said were your favorite

And maybe burn myself a little with the iron

On special occasions

And the next time I'm in a subway station,

I'll stand a little further on the yellow line

Or maybe the next I'm at your apartment

I'll try a little harder

Source: Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs (Muumuu House, 2009)

Biography

Kennedy’s debut collection, Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs (2009), was published by poet Tao Lin’s Muumuu House, a press supporting the work of other young poets such as Brandon Scott Gorrell, Noah Cicero, and Megan Boyle, whose poetry interrogates the intersection of daily life, poetic convention, and Internet presence.

Within a sleeve of narrative storytelling and conversational exchange, Kennedy creates prose poems that . . .

Continue reading this biography