Sound Bites, Issue 5 – Jed Kudrick

ABOUT OUR AUTHOR:

Jed Kudrick is a sophomore Creative and Professional Writing major. He is also vice president of the Christian Fellowship Club and treasurer of the Film Club, and is an editor for the Pitt-Greensburg Insider.

Jed likes to write dark poetry, but ones that contain a plethora of emotions alongside. His biggest inspiration as a poet is Edgar Allan Poe, who’s been Jed’s favorite poet since he first read Poe in elementary school. He is also motivated by his friends and classmates— and, especially, their poetry—  who are very influential in his own writings.

3 Poems by Jed Kudrick: “The Sweet Release of Death,” “The Glass,” and “A Loving Embrace”

The Sweet Release Of Death

I was driving home from my best friend’s house

It’d been a long day full of work but also fun

I was tired and wanted to get home to bed

I took the backroads because that’d be faster

But they were also twistier, darker, more dangerous

I missed him and the fun that we’d had

To leave him to return to the loneliness of my apartment,

to go to bed only to get up early the next morning for more work

The unending cycle of work in order to be able to afford to live

I was not insane, not yet

I was however most fatigued and down in the dumps

Maybe nothing in life does really matter?

What if I took a turn too fast and went flying off the road to my doom?

My thought process was abruptly interrupted as I lurched forward in my seat

My seatbelt caught me before I could forcefully collide with my dashboard

I sat there, staring at the road in front of me, illuminated by my headlights

I was confused at what had just happened, but also relieved

I unbuckled my seatbelt, my unwavering savior, and exited my car

The hood was smoking, dented and damaged beyond repair

Lying in front of my car, 

a deer, a fawn actually, strewn out on the road in front of me

its body, contorted, mangled, but still alive, just barely

Its breath came in heaving motions and shuddered as it struggled

Chestnut hair brushed with crimson blood

I look to the right and left to see if I can tell where it came from

any pawprints or tracks to give its previous position away

Did it come by itself? Had it gotten lost?

Did it have a mother? A father? A family?

Its eyes rolled in its sockets as I cautiously got closer

Memories and dreams of what would never now be reflected in its fading eyes

its legs now broken and fractured and limp

The muscles in its calf flexed, trying to push itself up from the ground

but no bone was intact to continue the physical action

Its form had scraped against the ground from the initial crash site

the headlights providing a beacon to the blood-red treadmarks on the street

Gravel and loose pavement scattered about, soaked red 

The soles of my shoes, originally white, now slicked ruby

and glued to the abundant substance

like stepping on a piece of gum exiting a subway

I had barely even noticed at the time though

It was like catching a glimpse of yourself in a reflective surface

This fawn lying on the road, a mirror into the deepest parts of me

trudging through the viscous liquid pooling

falling on my knees in front of this gentle creature

this life that I had permanently postponed

I projected my longings onto another

its hide was warm, pulsing, as I ran my fingers along its coat

The body flinched and attempted to pull away from my touch

but there were not enough systemic connections to complete its mind’s request

My caress followed up its neck and finally to its face

now frozen in perpetual fear

It looked so cold, so lifeless, but it continued to hang on

grasping at whatever life still offered 

My left hand wrapped around the side of its head

Peeling hair and skin to reveal flesh and bone as I lifted it in the air

Its head in my own two hands, we were now face to face

Like two lovers about to share an embrace

A fawn, not yet in the prime of its life, run down by an unsuspecting foe

and yet the fawn was getting what I seemed to have wanted

something that seemed a lifetime off, now facing it head on

Why the fawn, but also why not the fawn?

It could’ve been anything – a cat, a dog, me

lying here, bleeding out on a desolate road

No more early mornings

No more regrets about work

No more pain and sadness and anger

No anything at all

But where was the happiness?

Where was the joy?

The rush of positive emotions never again experienced in this one’s soul

The low times no longer low, but the high times no longer high

Just nothing at all

I held the fawn’s head in my hands as if time had woven an eternity around us

This fawn was getting what I had thought I wanted and yet it was not

Maybe there was more than the monotonous routine of living to not die

Maybe something had to die in order for me to realize why I had to live

Salty tears splashed off the fawn’s brown face as a realization started setting in me

I would seek out my goals, ambitions, anything that brought me happiness

the eternal fight between joy and sorrow

The fawn was alive, yes, but 

its life was causing more pain than it was doing it good

It deserved a proper sendoff

Not bleeding out in the middle of the road, another victim of an unseen calamity

But a merciful freeing

The fawn slowly blinked at me, understanding it seemed

I closed my burning eyes, tears singeing against my eyelids

I raised its head up to mine, forehead to forehead, in a moment of utmost acceptance

lowering its head one final time, my vision blurring from the tears

I slowly turned its head to the left and then rapidly to the right

I went back to work the next morning a different man than I had been the day before

Where there had been pessimism, now shown through light beams of optimism

Along with the body of the fawn I had buried on the side of that road

Lay the soul of a man I would not recognize if I passed him by in a mirror

All because of the fateful passing of one fawn that showed me a new destiny

The Glass

He was drinking

He was always drinking

She said that was the problem

That’s probably what she was screaming about right now

She was always screaming

He couldn’t hear her anyway

The buzzing in his brain was too loud

They always fought

He was numb to their fights 

The glass in his hand became lighter as he drank the contents away

He sat in his armchair, king of the world, king of crap

He was so sick of her yelling

He just wanted her to shut up

There was nothing else in arm’s reach

What good was the glass anyway?

It was empty

His eyebrows furrowed

Enough was enough

So he threw it

He threw it at her head

No sooner had the glass left his fingertips

than he regretted it immediately

But it was too late

The glass arced through the air

like a fastball to a catcher

It caught a sunbeam as it flew

glinting its surface while it sailed

The glass connected with her skull

and shattered upon impact

Pieces of glass and flesh and blood

separated from their previous placements

As the glass broke so did his whole world

A memory he had wanted to forget

now being replayed before his eyes

the individual shards of glass

all reflecting his past in front of him

He was now not unlike his father

who drank and yelled and screamed

and beat them ‘til they were black and blue

Why couldn’t his mother just leave him?

Why couldn’t she take them away?

Why was she so devoted

to a man so devoted to the glass?

The previously clear glass pieces

now stained and tainted red

distorting his vision through them

Seeing himself young and weak and helpless

Why hadn’t he fought back?

Why hadn’t he protected her?

But what could a child

do against a grown man?

But he was no longer a child

He was the grown man now

Generations of armchairs and abuse

continued on through him

His life and soul filled up the glass

until he was drained empty, too

He was done, finished, the end

A Loving Embrace

Finally my mother’s knitting lessons are being put to good use

I sit down and start knitting away

Knitting is relaxing, calming, therapeutic even

Distracts me from everything else going on in my life

Makes me temporarily forget about those in my high school

Everyone thinks they are better than me

Well, maybe because they are

Shay’s the hottest one around that all the guys drool over

Greta’s parents are loaded but rarely around, so she throws the greatest parties

Even Molly, who’s a nerd, but everyone still goes to her for the answers

And then there’s me

Ugly, poor, and stupid

The boys who do actually look at me only do to make fun

Blaze says I have a face only a mother could love

Davien has my schedule memorized so that he can more easily avoid me

Fletcher tried adding up my reasons to live and came out with a big, fat zero

I understand why Davien avoids me

And Fletcher’s right – I have nothing to live for

But, Blaze’s was the most true

My mother did love me

And she may’ve been the only one

I never knew my father

My mother says he left right after I was born

He must’ve realized I wouldn’t amount to anything

There is one thing that I’m good at, though

And that is knitting

The one thing I have left of my mother

My mother died just last month

The cancer took her from me

The doctors thought she might have a chance

But they were wrong

I live with my aunt and uncle now

They hate me, too, of course

My uncle screams and beats me

My aunt drinks and pretends I don’t exist

Maybe I’ll knit myself a scarf like my mother would’ve made for me

A nice knitted scarf to wrap around my neck in the winter

My mother would bundle me up nice and tight to play with me outside

We built snowmen and had snowball fights and made snow angels

I pulled the scarf down to catch snowflakes on my tongue

I remember how she smiled at me

She laughed and giggled as I sneezed repeatedly after getting a cold

She said I should’ve kept my scarf up

She was right of course

She was always right

I hold my finished product in front of me

As I sit on my chair in the attic

the one room I’m allowed to be in in this house I won’t call my home

My mother was my home and now she’s gone

I wrap the scarf around my neck

A single tear drips down my cheek, staining the virgin yarn

I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them

My mother used to hold me like this

She would wrap her arms around my neck and say she’d never let me go

She’d never let me go until I was happy again

until I’d stopped crying and there was a cheerful smile on my face

But I can’t live without her anymore

The pain, it hurts too much

I move my chair to the middle of the room

Hoist myself up

I wrap the scarf around the rafter and pull

A nice tight and secure knot

Just like my mother taught me to tie

I sniff the scarf one last time

It smells just like my mother

She may be dead and I may’ve just made this scarf

but her scent is infused in the yarn

I used to knit it that I had gotten from her kit

I wrap the scarf around my neck

like I had around the rafter

like my mother used to do to me

so it wouldn’t fly away in the harsh winter wind

I want to see my mother again

Not Shay, not Greta, not Molly

Not Blaze, not Davien, not Fletcher

Not my aunt nor my uncle nor even my father

just her forever and ever

I grasp my scarf and hold it tight

The scarf I made in memory of her

With this final memory in mind 

I kick the chair out from under me

I fall

The scarf catches around my neck as both the knots hold steady

I feel a crack in my neck and it starts to get hard to breathe

My throat becomes hot, like a cold winter’s fire

Tears continue streaming down my face

I swing a little back and forth and the scarf tightens as I go

I do not fight the tendencies

This is my final wish

Let me die in silence

I’ll be with my mother now

ABOUT OUR COLUMN:

Sound Bites is a poetry column intended to be read, heard, and tasted. It is finger food, messy and hands-on, compacting all the sweetest bits of a writer into a few small moments. The column will accept student writing submissions in the form of poetry or short prose for every issue from any and all majors, ages, and backgrounds.

Submissions can be emailed directly to Poetry Editor Geneva Webber at gwebberinsider@gmail.com. Parameters for submissions are as follows:

• Please attach a Word (.docx) document of your piece(s) with a maximum of 750 words
• Select and attach a photo of yourself for the column cover
• Include a short but personal bio about yourself with a maximum of 200 words
• Specify your preferred name and pronouns
• Clarify if your work is a finished piece or if you’re looking for suggestions
• If you submit multiple pieces, give them a group title of your choosing (i.e. “Three Poems by Lindsey Kutz”
• Be prepared for follow-up questions 🙂