She stares at an empty wall<\/p>\n
visions a ladder lifting her up,<\/p>\n
overcome a battle she\u2019s facing.<\/p>\n
In Junior High, Jeanine teased<\/p>\n
and bullied me to impress friends<\/p>\n
until her older cousin asked her to stop.<\/p>\n
By Senior year of high school she left<\/p>\n
became\u00a0unimpressive, bullied by her own circumstances.<\/p>\n
Jeanine was pregnant.<\/p>\n
Now on the receiving end<\/p>\n
I never smirked or smiled<\/p>\n
at the karma of 1992.<\/p>\n
We became acquaintances<\/p>\n
in adulthood.<\/p>\n
I held her place in line<\/p>\n
at Sam Goody<\/p>\n
so she could grab one<\/p>\n
more record.<\/p>\n
I told Jeanine about my job\u2019s<\/p>\n
Annual Chinese Auction.<\/p>\n
A glow in her eyes<\/p>\n
each year winning baskets.<\/p>\n
On Facebook she showcased her daughter<\/p>\n
with pictures of their resemblance to one another.<\/p>\n
Never the son she gave up over thirty years ago.<\/p>\n
Standing in MOMA she stares at a bare white wall,<\/p>\n
sees the ladder to carry her as she battles cancer for a second time.<\/p>\n
Instead of karma, tell Jeanine she\u2019s got this even if life is uncertain<\/p>\n
because dark corners<\/p>\n
need to see brightness of possibilities<\/p>\n
as she embraces a fight with chemo.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She stares at an empty wall visions a ladder lifting her up, overcome a battle she\u2019s facing. In Junior High, Jeanine teased and bullied me to impress friends until her older cousin asked her to stop. By Senior year of high school she left became\u00a0unimpressive,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127964","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\/4331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128291,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127964\/revisions\/128291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}