ERIK KENNEDY

DARVO

The most powerful forces in the universe are
the strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force,
and the need terrible people have to believe 
that they are the victims. The sun never sets on
the empire of grievances. The analysts who bomb
apartment buildings say they have their reasons.
It's bullying to doxx dog-kickers, according to 
the Society for Kicking Dogs. Tom Fairweather pushed me 
off the top of the slide and I broke my arm, alas.
I later learned that it upset him to see my arm 
like that. Sorry. Sorry, I'm trying to fix it! 
The bone set straight many years ago, but to Tom it will 
always be sickening and wonky, wonkening and sicky
and bent out of plumb, an affront to true direction 
and a bad memory of an arm, a naughty arm. Even healed, 
my arm to Tom is a reminder of a bad time in his life,
the way flowers remind some people of funerals. 

Erik Kennedy is the author of Sick Power Trip (2025), Another Beautiful Day Indoors (2022), and There's No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (2018), all with Te Herenga Waka University Press. He co-edited No Other Place to Stand (Auckland University Press, 2022), an anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific. Originally from New Jersey, he lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

Kennedy comments: 'DARVO stands for "deny, attack, reverse victim and offender". It is a manipulation tactic used by abusers to avoid accountability for their actions. DARVO is used not just by individuals but by corporations and states. The more powerful you are, the more likely the tactic is to work for you. It is, more and more, a DARVO world. The central event of the poem, me being pushed off a slide as a child, did happen, but the name of my young playmate has been changed.'

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​Links

Erik Kennedy's website

Erik Kennedy's Bluesky