I\u2019ve lived on the second floor
\nof someplace or another since 20, 10 and 4
\nEach day, I would find myself traversing the stairs to the outside world
\nRunning halfway down in a dream, body hurled,
\nonly to notice my near-sightedness
\nand rewinding
\njust to miss the bus
\nan ever-transpiring malady
\nto retrieve my glasses or my keys
\nbefore the door slams shut behind me
\nAnd at night I\u2019d twist one big toe in a semi-circle in front of me
\nfinding my way in the dark
\npracticing ballet
\nDoing pirouettes for the fool moon<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t really consider the utility of stairs until
\nI couldn\u2019t take a step on my own and my broken foot swelled
\nSuddenly, my ankle refused to support me through this transitory space
\nbetween the places
\nthat held my life
\nI crawled from the bed excited to use the bathroom
\nso I could see a different color paint, I tried to escape,
\nIn my bed, I would dream of Scotty beaming me up and out
\nanywhere, but this sinkhole my body had dug into the mattress
\nStuck like a cold tile in grout<\/p>\n
Ask me where I go when I can\u2019t
\nWhen there\u2019s nowhere left to hide
\nI tunnel inside of myself, out of rebuttals to delay
\nPulling back the sheets I\u2019d thrown over the furniture of my truth
\nto keep it from getting dusty while I was away
\nSweeping out the cobwebs
\nRecycling the beer cans
\nAnd moving back into the heart I had left lonely
\nMy spirit suddenly and boldly
\nthankful for that moment when I fell
\ndown and went boom
\nso I could make the room
\nto begin to see
\nthat there\u2019s always been more waiting for me
\ncasting off the illusion that this was accidental
\nDepression and seclusion kept me hurting and distant
\nFrom my best version
\nI\u2019m unearthly and my birth anointed by the sun
\nappointed by a jinn nonchalantly looking up from a newspaper to say,
\n\u201cWelcome in. I have been waiting for you. What do you wish?\u201d<\/p>\n
I want to learn to walk before I run<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve lived on the second floor of someplace or another since 20, 10 and 4 Each day, I would find myself traversing the stairs to the outside world Running halfway down in a dream, body hurled, only to notice my near-sightedness and rewinding just to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72156","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\/1292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72163,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72156\/revisions\/72163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}