Denim Day Display
Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2023 UA Phoenix
Denim Day Art Exhibit
hosted and organized by me with others contributing anonymously on painting the jeans):
Kennedy Sparling
Samples of my poetry:
Butterfly Girl,
The Empty Bottle,
Echoes of Our Humanity,
Suspended Between Selves
Kennedy Sparling
The Empty Bottle
By Kennedy Sparling
In the corner of the cabinet,
the orange bottle waits,
a familiar name calling,
TAKE ONE BY MOUTH.
Inside, small white capsules,
smooth as pirouettes,
light dancing off their curves,
to the melody of relief,
the false promise of tomorrow.
As the cap loosens,
clicks echo off the grooves.
A sigh escapes; the bottle tilts,
t’s contents spilling into the palm—
thoughts trailing behind.
Not long after,
the familiar weight returns,
the crushing feeling in the chest,
the desperation for another pill,
just another pill.
With each dose,
light fades to a whisper,
colors bleed to a grey.
Wondering if this daily ritual
is a sanctuary or a shackle,
the answer or the problem?
All coming at a cost.
But still, it continues
pills as the only solution,
beliefs they can make things better,
improve what isn’t there,
fix what is.
Maybe a different pill,
maybe a higher dose.
Just keep on taking,
until every bottle is empty.
Echoes of Our Humanity
By Kennedy Sparling
Mortality whispers through the wards
Drowned out by metrics and protocols
Life reduced to cell counts and vital signs
As if numbers could build walls
Holding back
What we cannot bear to see
We tread through the halls
Without listening
To the mind that struggles
To the quiet plea of an unheld hand
As if the pulse of life
Could be measured without feeling
It is dangerous—
This detachment adopted as PPE
Shielding us from mortality’s shadow
Depriving meaning from each breath
Distancing ourselves from the unknown
That defines existence
In stripping humanity from the body
We wear away our own
Convincing ourselves, perhaps unconsciously,
That we are exempt from death’s reach
Telling ourselves there’s more time, Always more time.
Yet the air is thick with quiet truths
And one last measure
slips to borrowed time
In this void, we lose sight
Of what our “healing hands”
Were truly for
Suspended Between Selves
By Kennedy Sparling
Before the mirror,
stands a paradox of 25 years,
youth clinging like vapor,
while age whispers beneath.
Time inscribes itself carefully,
etching faint lines
across the forehead,
around the eyes,
beside the mouth.
Barely visible, but I still see.
I’ve been taught to cherish
the body’s journey from beginning to end.
To honor its wear
as a testament to experience,
a reminder of a life lived full,
a reflection of the soul’s resilience.
And yet, here I am,
lathering on hope from a jar,
a promise of anti-aging
that smells of grief
and guilt.
“Wrinkles represent stories”,
but I’m not ready to share mine.
The scars of my past speak loudly enough.
Still, I study my reflection,
familiar yet foreign,
a face suspended between past and future.
What does it mean to live,
if the face staring back feels like a stranger?
If time transforms,
does it take
or build the essence of me?
Am I more myself today, or less?
Social pressures weigh heavy,
yet it’s my own gaze
that feels the heaviest.
How human it is
to fear being forgotten—
not by the world,