Poetry by Dana Kinsey

     Tero Karppinen CC



​
I’ll Take “Things That Can’t Be Ruined” for One Thousand

Someone once told me I was broken,
but doesn’t everybody need a break?

Happily-ever-afters depend on spells 
broken by handsome prince kisses. 

We break chocolate bars into squares 
momentary shares of melty sweetness. 

I felt warm water rush from my body, 
broken like a dam before my son arrived. 

He’s alive because something in me
broke open to release him head first

into a world where he’ll break patterns
of men ashamed to speak with softness.  

See, I break silences like an Olympian 
breaks records. Gold medal me please. 

Codes were designed to be deciphered,
broken by mathematicians stopping wars

like referees breaking apart brutal boxers
before blood pours into puddles onto mats. 

What matters most is breaking falls,
saving skin and bones from concrete. 


Blockbusters break box office records
when actors crack hearts into halves.

Having bad days sometimes just means
sunrays haven’t broken through clouds. 

Only broken horses know to run, escape
reins, thrust lustrous manes into winter winds. 

Artists use the golden repair of kintsugi to heal 
breakage, turn tragic cracks into rich history. 

In the future, don’t ever circuit break me, 
just measure my currents by testing my will 

against yours when you break open my body,
a pomegranate packed with rubies shimmering

                               from a place where I will never be less than whole.

​



Dana Kinsey is a spoken word artist, actor, and teacher published in Fledgling Rag, SWWIM, SoFloPoJo, The Champagne Room, West Trestle Review, Wild Roof Journal, and more. Her poem “Show Me, Earth, Your Day," was a contest finalist in 2023 at Sweet Lit. Her poem “Paying My Respects” was chosen by Oprelle for their Poetry Masters Anthology. Dana's play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre.  Her book, Mixtape Venus, is published by I. Giraffe Press and was selected as a “Best Dressed” feature for The Wardrobe at Sundress Publications. Visit wordsbyDK.com.