The nights were almost unbearable the first week
\nIt was the quiet
\nSo quiet<\/p>\n
I measured time in heartbeats
\nListening for the telltale lub-dub; lub-dub…
\nThe dead do not suffer the silence
\nIn this new found void, I tumbled<\/p>\n
I learned to cherish that quiet, though
\nPartly because, I realized I didn’t miss the nightly language of home<\/p>\n
Random gunfire from across town
\nThe sirens that followed
\nOr lack thereof, depending on the mood of that night<\/p>\n
The bikers and their language of revving
\nThey do like to hear themselves talk<\/p>\n
Here, though, the only wail was that of the coyote’s
\nSinging to each other, or just to the night<\/p>\n
The odd semi on the state highway a mile and a half away
\nMaking that low rumble sound as they down shifted in a hurry
\nThe language of Jake and his miraculous brake<\/p>\n
It was the third week of my stay in Gainesville
\nWhen I realized that it wasn’t the silence that harried me so<\/p>\n
It was me
\nFor the first time in 13 years, I was alone with my own thoughts
\nI was alone with a stranger, whom I looked in the eye not a month before
\nDeclaring that I needed to learn how to be by myself
\nNever considering the terror I would endure
\nThose first three weeks
\nIn Gainesville, Texas.<\/p>\n
It was then that I cherished the silence for what it was
\nA respite from the cacophony of society
\nSo that I could finally address the cacophony
\nWithin myself
\nLearn the language of me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The nights were almost unbearable the first week It was the quiet So quiet I measured time in heartbeats Listening for the telltale lub-dub; lub-dub… The dead do not suffer the silence In this new found void, I tumbled I learned to cherish that quiet,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404","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\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9538,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9404\/revisions\/9538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}