Blinked awake
with my chin turned up
braced against the shadow space
between the ceiling
and my bed
where all my fears
were lingering menacingly <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With my teeth clenched
I wake up
ill-rested:
tired from eleven rounds of
unconscious fighting<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With my eyes open
I smell victory
in the finale
In my mind I run circles around
the dark,
the trailing laces of my gloves
tie us both all up in knots <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With my hands tied, jaw clenched,
heart pounding, suddenly
I see myself
from where the shadow resides
I look down with love
from that space
between the ceiling
and the bed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am too wired
to give up the fight entirely
but there is another \u2013
an altogether more disruptive \u2013
opportunity:
to lean into the punch
and feel the weight
of what the dark
has in store for me<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So although I didn’t get the belt
and \u2013 it’s true \u2013
I lost a few of my teeth,
I will retire to my corner
to a life of happy obscurity
fluffy towels (thrown in)
and deeply peaceful sleep<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will not be undefeated champion
or even sports personality of the year
but since I have leaned into the punch<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am not scared of the dark
I do not brace for impact
and I can dream without fear<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Blinked awake
\nwith my chin turned up
\nbraced against the shadow space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-bodies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diary.katemcaleer.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}