{"id":140121,"date":"2023-09-03T02:17:19","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T06:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=140121"},"modified":"2023-09-03T04:47:43","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T08:47:43","slug":"hour-18-afters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/hour-18-afters\/","title":{"rendered":"Hour 18 – Afters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afters<\/b><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

My life is made from afters,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from endings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is made from dust,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

clinging tightly to the floorboard behind the stove.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is made from towels of spilt seed left under the bed<\/span><\/p>\n

and of ghosts lingering in their houses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I say afters,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose I truly mean befores I didn\u2019t know would be\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

befores.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is made from before the pain set in,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from before death arrived,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from before he happened,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

or he happened<\/span><\/p>\n

or he happened or he\u2013\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is made from resilience\u2019s decaying mouth,<\/span><\/p>\n

its teeth rotting from its skull<\/span><\/p>\n

as it is asked to smile.<\/span><\/p>\n

It could have been worse after all.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My life is one of a survivor<\/span><\/p>\n

who never learned\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to cherish the befores,<\/span><\/p>\n

who never asked what could change<\/span><\/p>\n

only did so when it was demanded.<\/span><\/p>\n

No longer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I shall build a life that is made<\/span><\/p>\n

of life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afters   My life is made from afters,\u00a0 from endings.\u00a0 It is made from dust,\u00a0 clinging tightly to the floorboard behind the stove.\u00a0 It is made from towels of spilt seed left under the bed and of ghosts lingering in their houses.\u00a0 When I say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3778,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140121","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\/3778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140126,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140121\/revisions\/140126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}