Okay, we have to talk<\/p>\n
Every few years
\nyou try to save yourself time or effort
\nby taking shortcuts<\/p>\n
You know what I\u2019m talking about\u2014
\ndon\u2019t even lie<\/p>\n
Let me remind you:<\/p>\n
That time at the Graham Hill playground
\nwhen your bicycle chain fell off?
\nYou couldn\u2019t use the brakes to stop
\nso you steered right into the chain-link fence?
\nFortunately, the boys were all right<\/p>\n
That time in the Cleveland parking lot?
\nYou were in a rush to get to your first class
\nso you went up the dirt embankment, tripped
\nand fell on a piece of glass?
\nSpent the morning in the emergency room?
\nSix stitches? Ring a bell?<\/p>\n
That time at Crazy Mike\u2019s when you jumped up
\nto grab something from the other side of the counter
\nand your ribs hit the edge on the way down?
\nThat still hurts sometimes, you know<\/p>\n
That time when Levitz was delivering the new living room furniture
\nbut got lost in that wacky little area
\nwhere the street names trade places?
\nAfter flagging them down
\nyou ran across the lawn and tried to jump up to the front door
\nso you wouldn\u2019t have to go up TWO STEPS?
\nYou didn\u2019t break it, but that ankle will never be quite right\u2026<\/p>\n
That time you went with the wife to get a new car
\nafter one of the kids totalled it in a wreck?
\nYou should have bought used, I\u2019m telling you
\n\u2019cause that thing was already doomed
\neven without the damn kids<\/p>\n
All those times you grabbed everything from the car
\nbecause you didn\u2019t want to make two or three trips
\nthen tripped on the stairs because you couldn\u2019t see where your feet were?
\nHow long did it take before you could pull stuff out of the washing machine
\nwithout going OW\u2013OW\u2013OW\u2013OW?
\nThat\u2019s right!<\/p>\n
Or that time you were carrying that big-ass box out to your car
\nfrom your mom\u2019s house and fell down those TWO STEPS?
\nRemember how it took two or three years
\nfor that arm to get back to normal?
\nDon\u2019t tell me you don\u2019t\u2014you still have the elbow brace to prove it<\/p>\n
And what about that time you married your ex
\nbecause y\u2019all thought you were so mature now
\nand all the bad shit was already behind you?
\nUh-huh\u2014where are you now?<\/p>\n
Remember:<\/p>\n
Make the extra trips
\nWalk around the whatever
\nTake the stairs
\nDon\u2019t rush
\nDo it right<\/p>\n
And most of all\u2014history is not a shortcut<\/p>\n
Love,
\nFuture Kevin<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(22 June 2019, Hour 10)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, we have to talk Every few years you try to save yourself time or effort by taking shortcuts You know what I\u2019m talking about\u2014 don\u2019t even lie Let me remind you: That time at the Graham Hill playground when your bicycle chain fell off?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":793,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1173,177,2771,1163,2798,3064],"class_list":["post-52841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","tag-half-marathon","tag-hour-11","tag-june-2019","tag-kevin-j-oconner","tag-poetry-marathon-2019","tag-prompt-a-letter-to-your-past-self"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52841","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\/793"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52841"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52885,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52841\/revisions\/52885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}