{"id":70008,"date":"2020-06-27T19:12:19","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T23:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=70008"},"modified":"2020-06-27T19:12:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T23:12:19","slug":"70008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/70008\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

At the bottom of the bottle<\/em>,<\/p>\n

He took off the mask<\/em> and began to cry.<\/p>\n

He couldn’t drink enough these days to end the suffering.<\/p>\n

His heart felt a strange heat<\/em>,\u00a0 dragging up out of him a hidden longing<\/p>\n

He let his eyes rest on the treeline<\/em> and set his mind free<\/p>\n

He could smell porridge<\/em> cooking in the cottage,<\/em><\/p>\n

see the firefly<\/em> the children caught in a jar<\/p>\n

He was a young man then laughing and hoping and dreaming with his pretty wife<\/p>\n

Where did the years go.<\/p>\n

He threw the bottle to the ground.<\/p>\n

The wife was gone,\u00a0 the fever took her.\u00a0 It took him too.<\/p>\n

The children… family took them.<\/p>\n

They would have children now.<\/p>\n

lethargy<\/em> drained out of him and oozed into the ground<\/p>\n

Something akin to hope took its place.<\/p>\n

He staggered toward the shelter.<\/p>\n

He had steered clear of there for months<\/p>\n

Since that preacher had spoken over him that he would live and not die.<\/p>\n

He had cursed the words.<\/p>\n

Death was all he had wanted.\u00a0 A final relief.\u00a0 And even that would be denied him?<\/p>\n

The preacher had only smiled,<\/p>\n

some kind of knowing was in his eyes.\u00a0 A peaceful knowing.<\/p>\n

It took the power out of his alcohol and the rest out of his soul.<\/p>\n

Maybe just maybe that preacher would be there<\/p>\n

and maybe he knew something else<\/p>\n

How a man that couldn’t die might find a way to live.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the bottom of the bottle, He took off the mask and began to cry. He couldn’t drink enough these days to end the suffering. His heart felt a strange heat,\u00a0 dragging up out of him a hidden longing He let his eyes rest on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":856,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70008","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\/856"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70171,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70008\/revisions\/70171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}