Taking a step back from family,
\nI choose to accept myself for me.<\/p>\n
Years of biting my tongue,
\ntaking the high road,
\nor just plain hiding myself,
\nall culminate in one text exchange:<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease support your family,
\ncome to your grandson\u2019s memorial service,
\neven if you don\u2019t agree with the way we do things,
\nyour family needs you\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
This was enough to open flood gates.
\nThis was enough to call a grieving girl
\nvile names.<\/p>\n
This was the last straw.<\/p>\n
I never thought I
\nhad it in me to set boundaries.
\nI never thought
\nit was truly possible to
\nleave this pain in the past.<\/p>\n
I never thought I could
\nescape
\nnarcissistic elders
\nwho\u2019ve never been told no.<\/p>\n
But I did.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s painful.
\nIt was devastating
\nfor a period of time.
\nIt left my heart pounding
\nin a way that even grief didn\u2019t
\nquite
\nmimic.<\/p>\n
At a time where I thought
\nthings couldn\u2019t get any worse<\/p>\n
the people who are supposed to be
\ncaring
\nloving
\nsupportive
\nsomehow ensured that it did.<\/p>\n
I will never return
\nto allowing people to step over
\nme.
\nMy thoughts,
\nmy opinions,
\nmy true self,
\nare never going to be concealed again
\nespecially not in hopes of gaining love<\/p>\n
from someone I should never have had to convince.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a step back from family, I choose to accept myself for me. Years of biting my tongue, taking the high road, or just plain hiding myself, all culminate in one text exchange: \u201cPlease support your family, come to your grandson\u2019s memorial service, even if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116684,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116683\/revisions\/116684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}