we were innocent souls<\/p>\n
on the corner selling<\/p>\n
lemonade for a quarter<\/p>\n
handing out kindness<\/p>\n
and smiles for free<\/p>\n
one afternoon<\/p>\n
my three friends and me<\/p>\n
we were suppose to<\/p>\n
be raising money<\/p>\n
for our treehouse<\/p>\n
we wanted furniture<\/p>\n
and curtains to<\/p>\n
adorn the space<\/p>\n
so we could sleep<\/p>\n
there on the weekends<\/p>\n
every Thursday afternoon<\/p>\n
we found ourselves<\/p>\n
on the corner<\/p>\n
with our stand<\/p>\n
and our pitcher<\/p>\n
cups and cubes<\/p>\n
and language of<\/p>\n
well spoken licorice<\/p>\n
candies – sweet<\/p>\n
and innocent and<\/p>\n
America’s favorite<\/p>\n
The clientele<\/p>\n
was always plentiful<\/p>\n
although the street<\/p>\n
was never too busy<\/p>\n
Mr. Winthers across<\/p>\n
the street drank most<\/p>\n
of the lemonade<\/p>\n
when activity slowed<\/p>\n
down, and even helped<\/p>\n
us get a pretty rug<\/p>\n
for our treehouse<\/p>\n
came from his late wife’s<\/p>\n
estate<\/p>\n
we never really had a<\/p>\n
care, a worry or a clue<\/p>\n
that some of our clients<\/p>\n
would do the things<\/p>\n
they would do<\/p>\n
or at least the one<\/p>\n
in particular<\/p>\n
on this Thursday<\/p>\n
afternoon<\/p>\n
pulled up in his car<\/p>\n
apparently my friend<\/p>\n
knew him, said he was<\/p>\n
friends with her father<\/p>\n
he ordered 4 lemonades<\/p>\n
to go and asked my friend<\/p>\n
if she wanted a ride home<\/p>\n
we were almost done<\/p>\n
so she said yes<\/p>\n
we all hugged and kissed<\/p>\n
our friend goodbye<\/p>\n
and finished our lemonade<\/p>\n
stand for the last time<\/p>\n
a week had gone by<\/p>\n
no word from our friend<\/p>\n
her parents unsure<\/p>\n
if the torment would end<\/p>\n
we never knew the<\/p>\n
dangers of trusting those<\/p>\n
we had always known<\/p>\n
didn’t even doubt<\/p>\n
his intentions<\/p>\n
didn’t know our friend<\/p>\n
would never return home<\/p>\n
we decided to still<\/p>\n
keep the treehouse in tact<\/p>\n
although we knew our friend<\/p>\n
was never coming back<\/p>\n
but we grew up<\/p>\n
that week after we said goodbye<\/p>\n
a lemonade stand<\/p>\n
now houses a pitcher<\/p>\n
of broken lives<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FJ original 2016<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
we were innocent souls on the corner selling lemonade for a quarter handing out kindness and smiles for free one afternoon my three friends and me we were suppose to be raising money for our treehouse we wanted furniture and curtains to adorn the space…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415","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\/878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28483,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415\/revisions\/28483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}