Before the darkness
\nI,
\nI
\nused to
\nimagine myself somewhere
\nelse:
\nA candy shop,
\na swirling, sickly sweet
\ncarousel,
\na library with
\nceilings that ceilings
\nthat soared
\nlike arias
\nor unscreamed screams.<\/p>\n
No one told me
\nwhat to expect.
\nno one said
\nit felt stretchy, full,
\nand lumpy,
\nlike giving birth
\nin reverse.
\nNo one said.
\nNo one told me.
\nSo I told no one,
\ntoo.<\/p>\n
And the carousels
\nkept spinning.<\/p>\n
Once I grew silent
\nand still,
\nI imagined them,
\nthe colors.
\nThey sparkled, grew,
\nfilled my body
\nlike music,
\nlike shooting stars,
\nlike fairy tale narratives,
\nlike letters that forgot
\nto form a sentence
\nwith an end.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t,
\nI mean didn\u2019t,
\nand I wavered
\nand drifted far,
\nfar away,
\nborne aloft by
\nballoons or grocery lists
\nor something anything.
\nI didn\u2019t even need
\nmy face,
\nmy name.<\/p>\n
Maybe you know them.<\/p>\n
\u201cApophenia\u201d means finding
\npatterns
\nin the chaos:
\nCloud animals,
\ndead loved ones
\nin a crowd,
\nlandscapes
\nin a
\ncobwebby ceiling.<\/p>\n
Before the darkness,
\nI
\ndanced and drifted,
\na dandelion fluff
\npropelled by
\nsneers and
\ngrunts.
\nI uncovered colors
\nin the dark
\nand
\nhoped,
\nhoped,
\nhoped
\nI would
\nremember
\nto forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before the darkness I, I used to imagine myself somewhere else: A candy shop, a swirling, sickly sweet carousel, a library with ceilings that ceilings that soared like arias or unscreamed screams. No one told me what to expect. no one said it felt stretchy,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277","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\/697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19538,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions\/19538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}