i am the garden\u2019s guardian i hope it will continue to flourish
\ni grew up in marshy waters and am used to eating moss and gnats
\nthere is a mold in each book i write i hope one day it consumes each page
\nmy mother never taught me to be a gentleman only a good person<\/p>\n
so i grew despite it all<\/p>\n
i watched a flower grow in the crack of asphalt
\nthe sun barely fed it and yet the plant prayed to it
\ngod, if it exists, planted me in a highway
\nmy father didn\u2019t want me to be tough he wanted me to survive<\/p>\n
i feel like calling him now<\/p>\n
when i am at my least survival
\nin my funeral home picking out the fabric
\nat my church picking out the blade or
\nat my home deciding what god would want me<\/p>\n
i think my grandmother was god<\/p>\n
i think i died at birth, or soon after
\nor late after, because i keep seeing myself
\ncome through the birth canal and keep
\napologizing despite it all, i figure<\/p>\n
i am not a creation just a collection<\/p>\n
of biology in ubiquitous perfection
\nthe bones in my arm are nothing of a miracle
\ni have seen them before, on those days
\nwhen i am at my least, very least father<\/p>\n
i cry into a mirror at the ripe age of nine<\/p>\n
wondering if all chests are as hollow
\nif dirt is meant to surround us or hold us up
\nmy father kisses my cheek, the sharp ends of
\nhis beard graze my ear, and i already miss the pain<\/p>\n
i still continue to wonder, and i remain so scattered<\/p>\n
so i pray to the sun, and hope, hope to grow from this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Craig Heyne i am the garden\u2019s guardian i hope it will continue to flourish i grew up in marshy waters and am used to eating moss and gnats there is a mold in each book i write i hope one day it consumes each page my mother never taught me to be a gentleman only Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-94","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/13-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}