{"id":35638,"date":"2017-08-05T15:49:51","date_gmt":"2017-08-05T19:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=35638"},"modified":"2017-08-05T15:49:51","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T19:49:51","slug":"the-curious-file-of-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/the-curious-file-of-39\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curious File of #39"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>She had, as we say in the industry, <em>a flat affect<\/em>. Relaying<br \/>\na monumental series of traumas; from a stepfather<br \/>\nwith indecent proclivities, to a stolen Dodge pickup,<br \/>\nthe night she spent in the woods after her aunt forgot<br \/>\nto count children when she packed up the campsite,<br \/>\nto the cop who violated her with his baton two blocks<br \/>\naway from the homeless campus downtown; her eyelids<br \/>\nnever twitched, her fingers steady as she patiently brushed<br \/>\na stray hair from her forehead. I wrote that her voice<br \/>\nwas warm and low, but rarely ventured from its singular<br \/>\nbaritone note. Until she recounted the recent escapade<br \/>\nthat resulted,for now, with her sitting stiffly in a chair,<br \/>\napproved by corporate for its <em>ergonomic properties<\/em>.<br \/>\nWith the vigor of a newly converted Christian, she leaned<br \/>\ntoward my desk, urgency pushing her breath out in quick gasps.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I had to leave that night, that\u2019s why I took Nick\u2019s car, I couldn\u2019t stay another minute, I couldn\u2019t bear it again, it hurts so much, every time they do it, and you get it, right? I mean how would you feel if worms were leaving the forest by the dozens and climbing through your window just so they could cut you open with their razor teeth and leave those nasty chips in your stomach. Look, here!&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>She lifted her pink t-shirt; her torso was smooth, unscarred.<br \/>\nI mumbled empathetically, unable to commit but unwilling<br \/>\nto alienate myself as we were just getting acquainted.<br \/>\nAs I scribbled furiously about <em>dysphoria, delusions, hallucinations<\/em>,<br \/>\nshe pulled a ten-inch-thick folder from her bag, placed<br \/>\nit gingerly on my notepad, her large brown eyes begging me<br \/>\nto believe her.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-35681\" src=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/werm-232x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/werm-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/werm.jpg 570w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She had, as we say in the industry, a flat affect. Relaying a monumental series of traumas; from a stepfather with indecent proclivities, to a stolen Dodge pickup, the night she spent in the woods after her aunt forgot to count children when she packed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":988,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2301,2223],"class_list":["post-35638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","tag-poemseven","tag-poetryhalfmarathon2017"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35638","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\/988"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35690,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35638\/revisions\/35690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}