i didn’t say it back.
\ni think that i thought that i felt it
\n& if i said it i’d mean it
\nbut i wanted to give her more than words;<\/p>\n
she deserved that.
\nso i wrapped my words in fear and hesitance.
\nand made a newly-inked to-do list
\nof proof i wanted to proffer:<\/p>\n
an introduction to my parents
\n& an accepted invitation to meet hers;
\nspace for herself in my room, not just my bed;
\nthe book she’d given me to read, returned, broken-spined and well-read.<\/p>\n
but
\ni was slow-moving.
\nshe was moving away.
\ni didn’t say it back & haven’t said it since.<\/p>\n
if i said it to her now
\ni would mean it.
\ni don’t know if she still does.
\nthat is not the important part.<\/p>\n
to find out if she wants any words from me at all
\ni would have to speak to her.
\ni do not know if that should be on the list
\nof things she deserves from me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i didn’t say it back. i think that i thought that i felt it & if i said it i’d mean it but i wanted to give her more than words; she deserved that. so i wrapped my words in fear and hesitance. and made…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1532,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3597,3442,680],"class_list":["post-73181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-2020halfmarathon","tag-2020poetrymarathon","tag-poetrymarathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73181","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\/1532"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73273,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73181\/revisions\/73273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}