{"id":295,"date":"2020-11-18T01:26:42","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T01:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.illinoisstate.edu\/euphemism\/16-1\/?page_id=295"},"modified":"2020-11-20T02:43:31","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T02:43:31","slug":"this-textbook-will-not-forgive-you","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/poetry\/this-textbook-will-not-forgive-you\/","title":{"rendered":"this textbook will not forgive you"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

this textbook\u00a0will not forgive you\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

when\u00a0i\u00a0was young\u00a0\u00a0
before\u00a0i\u00a0had keys to my house\u00a0
i\u00a0hit my brother.\u00a0
and when he shrieked in pain\u00a0
i\u00a0knew right away to stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it wasn\u2019t something someone told me;\u00a0
it was a sinking gut feeling.\u00a0
my upbringing told me\u00a0
to fall on your knees and pray\u00a0
to use your manners and to be polite\u00a0
to stand up when others are hurting–\u00a0
but it never told me not to run at night\u00a0
or to not reach into my pockets\u00a0
so that they don\u2019t lose sight of my hands.\u00a0
anxiety holds me so close it might get on one knee and propose soon\u00a0
but\u00a0i\u00a0have never known that fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and\u00a0i\u00a0frankly don\u2019t care about the tallies and bullet points\u00a0
that \u201che did x because he feared for his life\u201d\u00a0
because if you have the audacity\u00a0\u00a0
to kneel, not in prayer, but on someone\u2019s neck\u00a0
to ignore your brother as he cried in pain with what little breath he had\u00a0
to shove away that sinking feeling and the manners pounded into you–\u00a0
If This Looks Like Manners To You–\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you are the villain in this textbook.\u00a0
your predecessors will not hesitate to denounce you.\u00a0
and if they don\u2019t curse your name under their tongue,\u00a0
don\u2019t hate the feeling of\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0syllables on their lips,\u00a0
history\u00a0
will repeat again\u00a0
until they do.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nthis textbook\u00a0will not forgive you\u00a0 when\u00a0i\u00a0was young\u00a0\u00a0before\u00a0i\u00a0had keys to my house\u00a0i\u00a0hit my brother.\u00a0and when he shrieked in pain\u00a0i\u00a0knew right away to stop.\u00a0 it wasn\u2019t something someone told me;\u00a0it was a sinking gut feeling.\u00a0my upbringing told me\u00a0to fall on your knees…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “this textbook will not forgive you”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"parent":5,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/no-intro.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-295","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/295\/revisions\/405"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}