My roll of thunder was too loud
\nto hear the taunts that day
\nwhen I strutted
\nmy bedazzled orange tutu
\nto school, and my shoulders never crumbled
\nas I slipped into my tights
\nand stepped into the disc of stiff tulle,
\nstrode across the stage with a straight back,
\nmy shoulders didn\u2019t crumble when they played the wrong music,
\nand it was my thunderous confidence, not my sloppy knees
\nor the tic-tac hue of my outfit
\nthat won me a spot on the show.
\n
\nBut I\u2019m not six years old anymore,
\nand when my thunder met tsunami,
\nI retreated into a wind.
\nNo one tries to shut out thunder,
\nbut everyone closes their door to the wind.
\n
\nA wind without conviction,
\na wind that listens rather than roars,
\na wind taught to bend and turn and dodge and change course
\nat each obstacle
\nin order to
\nsurvive.
\n
\nMy truth no longer resides in unbent shoulders
\nor the straightness of a spine,
\nmy truth no longer has the audacity to be heard
\nthe way thunder roars
\nno matter who listens or hides away.
\n
\nMy truth is a constant whisper
\nlike the summer breeze in the treetops,
\nI must strain my own ears to hear the wind
\nto remember what I have long known but forgotten,
\nto rediscover the treasures I dug away for safekeeping,
\nand at the beginning of each harvest season,
\nI remember with delight that clementine is my favorite fruit,
\nand I clutch the tic-tac hue in my hand,
\nand I see myself engulfed in the stiff, round tutu,
\nand I see some of the
\nthunder in myself again.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My roll of thunder was too loud to hear the taunts that day when I strutted my bedazzled orange tutu to school, and my shoulders never crumbled as I slipped into my tights and stepped into the disc of stiff tulle, strode across the stage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31777","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\/1002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31777"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34528,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31777\/revisions\/34528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}