It’s my turn to speak and I’m beginning to sweat<\/p>\n
A quick read of my notes and I try not to fret<\/p>\n
I say something sweet to my aunts; they’re old.<\/p>\n
Thank the catering staff, my two grans, the Welsh fold.<\/p>\n
My parents in law can’t be in the same room, I’ve been told.<\/p>\n
The speech before mine was beginning to grind<\/p>\n
It was unfunny, untrue, too long and unkind<\/p>\n
I smile as I have all day been smiling<\/p>\n
I tidy my speech cards for the millionth time.<\/p>\n
Welcoming my guests as expected to is best<\/p>\n
This is the easy part and I start to warm up.<\/p>\n
It’s like acting,<\/p>\n
Where I tell a joke and it’s witty because it has a fact in.<\/p>\n
Brides don’t do speeches, but I have to, for my boys<\/p>\n
Brides don’t do speeches but the groom’s left no choice.<\/p>\n
Now, the punch line:<\/p>\n
The silence is mine.<\/p>\n
And I grip my cards harder because now it is time.<\/p>\n
I mention the space below each chair.<\/p>\n
“…In each space is an envelope that you need to tear open<\/p>\n
because inside, there is proof.<\/p>\n
It’s a gift to you all. I give you the truth.”<\/p>\n
The cards fall from my hands and I leave the hall.<\/p>\n
Now I am free.<\/p>\n
Good luck to them all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s my turn to speak and I’m beginning to sweat A quick read of my notes and I try not to fret I say something sweet to my aunts; they’re old. Thank the catering staff, my two grans, the Welsh fold. My parents in law…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[151],"class_list":["post-9536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","tag-hour-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9536","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\/313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9536"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9552,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9536\/revisions\/9552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}