{"id":97538,"date":"2021-06-26T20:44:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T00:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=97538"},"modified":"2021-06-26T20:44:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T00:44:25","slug":"doctor-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/doctor-please\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor, Please"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Doctor, Please<\/p>\n<p>Can you soothe the ache<br \/>\nof a childhood riddled with bullies<br \/>\nand teachers blinded by a lack of<br \/>\ncompassion, not knowing what<br \/>\nto do for me?<\/p>\n<p>Can you stitch away the scar<br \/>\nunder my left arm, one I don\u2019t need<br \/>\nto hide but feel when winds turn brisk?<br \/>\nI won\u2019t say I\u2019m blameless but I didn\u2019t<br \/>\nask for this.<\/p>\n<p>Tell me, can you ease the agony<br \/>\nof a shattered heart, beaten with<br \/>\na mallet of indifference? If hatred<br \/>\nhad hammered me, I could understand,<br \/>\naccept it but pain given to a stranger<br \/>\nto release heirloom racial, religious,<br \/>\npolitical hatred to an innocent victim<br \/>\nis something I cannot comprehend.<\/p>\n<p>Can you restore dignity to confidence<br \/>\ncrushed by greed of the needy, a jealousy<br \/>\nthat all that is mine belongs to them? My<br \/>\npossessions are meager but shallow minds<br \/>\nare savage, don\u2019t care that I work hard;<br \/>\nthey\u2019ve never had a job.<\/p>\n<p>Can you detox a soul stolen of mercy,<br \/>\nme left hung over a precipice without<br \/>\nan offered hand up? I am repentant for<br \/>\nmy misdeeds, penitent for mistrusting<br \/>\nthe world but pure in intent to be cured.<br \/>\nDoctor, please, can you erase my ache?<\/p>\n<p>~ J R Turek<br \/>\nJune 26, 2021 Hour 11<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doctor, Please Can you soothe the ache of a childhood riddled with bullies and teachers blinded by a lack of compassion, not knowing what to do for me? Can you stitch away the scar under my left arm, one I don\u2019t need to hide but&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97538","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\/1325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97548,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97538\/revisions\/97548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}