Three crows over my left shoulder,
\ndebarked me on an unknown shore,
\nthe land looked the same as did the people on it,
\nwhat changed was how I there stood.
\nI learned for once what want truly was,
\nmy infant stomach ached from what couldn’t sustain,
\nno encouragement, no prize, no attention just bleak,
\nno parental hang to chide or to hold,
\nor voice to call if stayed out at night.
\nno surprise, gift or party for me,
\nno questions about what I wanted to do.
\nI had to fend and survive alone,
\nno one came to put a plate before me,
\nwalking in the rain as no way to return,
\nfighting for younger siblings thought prey
\nforcing out my own blightful memories,
\nwhile barely held by the loosest social net,
\ncracks so wide and falls so deep,
\nevery small kindness lit up my face,
\nunexpected and needed momentary relief,
\ndistant holidays, studies, activities and such,
\ntotal fantasy seen on our rusty TV set.<\/p>\n
When those tides caught up to the age when I left,
\nI leaned and looked at my pre-voyage self,
\none opportunity laden in satiate sloth,
\nthe newer fearful yet value was felt,
\ndespite what little of any of it about.
\nboth fail and flounder, beholden to fate.
\nFour decades in and those children still drive,
\nguilt humbles to see what little I made,
\nof all that advantage heaped back then.
\nThe saga was raised to expect such support,
\nthen vanish and left like spartan birth,
\nno conditioning – but all softness and weak.
\nKneeling and supplication to those,
\nWho had not any of this support
\nWhose being were grown callous just to get by
\nStep past scar tissue and seek to soften inside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three crows over my left shoulder, debarked me on an unknown shore, the land looked the same as did the people on it, what changed was how I there stood. I learned for once what want truly was, my infant stomach ached from what couldn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1431,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-announcement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70009","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\/1431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70670,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70009\/revisions\/70670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}