I don\u2019t remember my exact age, maybe\u00a0 three, four,<\/p>\n
but I do remember that I was still in short pants.<\/p>\n
I was on the dirt road, in front of our house<\/p>\n
Playing like I was a soldier.<\/p>\n
I vaguely knew the boy,<\/p>\n
probably a friend of my brothers I surmised.<\/p>\n
He took my hand and led me toward<\/p>\n
a nearby house, inside to a bedroom.<\/p>\n
I remember the room well. The bedspread<\/p>\n
was white with tiny pink and yellow flowers.<\/p>\n
And the wallpaper was hanging down in one corner,<\/p>\n
Like an elephants ear.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, he was on the bed with me,<\/p>\n
his hand up my pants leg, touching me.<\/p>\n
Alarm springs up in my mind.<\/p>\n
I struggle against his damp,<\/p>\n
sour-smelly body as he fondles me.<\/p>\n
There is shouting.<\/p>\n
It is my brother.<\/p>\n
He picks me up, leaves the house,<\/p>\n
and takes me home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t remember my exact age, maybe\u00a0 three, four, but I do remember that I was still in short pants. I was on the dirt road, in front of our house Playing like I was a soldier. I vaguely knew the boy, probably a friend…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-introductions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37141","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\/962"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37160,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37141\/revisions\/37160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}