{"id":96633,"date":"2021-06-26T19:46:49","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T23:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=96633"},"modified":"2021-06-26T19:46:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T23:46:49","slug":"no-11-my-friend-janey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/no-11-my-friend-janey\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 11 – My Friend Janey"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 11 – My Friend Janey<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Nandhini G. Natarajan<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Of fourteen children,<\/p>\n

my friend Janey is the twelfth.<\/p>\n

Seven older brothers tell her<\/p>\n

where to go, what to do.<\/p>\n

Janey says yes,<\/p>\n

and does what she wants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She tells me that in college,<\/p>\n

I have to party.<\/p>\n

Inexperienced,<\/p>\n

I completely agree.<\/p>\n

I live in a strict dorm.<\/p>\n

She tells me to lie<\/p>\n

so I can be late.<\/p>\n

Her brother Jerry,<\/p>\n

the oldest and strictest says,<\/p>\n

Do not stay long<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Returning, do not use the deserted fields<\/em><\/p>\n

as a shortcut.<\/em><\/p>\n

Janey does both.<\/p>\n

I plead and beg,<\/p>\n

I have a healthy fear of Jerry.<\/p>\n

He is elsewhere, she assures me,<\/p>\n

At another party.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We cross the field,<\/p>\n

I am sure we will be murdered.<\/p>\n

if not by someone in the fields,<\/p>\n

definitely by her brother.<\/p>\n

Suddenly Janey notices Jerry\u2019s car<\/p>\n

On the road, around the fields.<\/p>\n

Run, <\/em>she urges.<\/p>\n

We hike our sarees<\/p>\n

and run.<\/p>\n

Jerry stops where he can<\/p>\n

intercept us,<\/p>\n

and turns on the high beams.<\/p>\n

We can be clearly seen,<\/p>\n

but panic-stricken<\/p>\n

we continue running<\/p>\n

and laughing<\/p>\n

hysterically.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next day, Jerry shows<\/p>\n

their family<\/p>\n

the pictures he took.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, all that is visible<\/p>\n

are the four legs<\/p>\n

and two sets of teeth<\/p>\n

in the dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 11 – My Friend Janey By Nandhini G. Natarajan   Of fourteen children, my friend Janey is the twelfth. Seven older brothers tell her where to go, what to do. Janey says yes, and does what she wants.   She tells me that in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96633","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\/2873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96660,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96633\/revisions\/96660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}