<\/p>\n
You will take a Gamble and Win.<\/em><\/p>\n Lucky Numbers: 13, 21, 23, 33, 47, 51, 60<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I keep making gambles. Each of my chips are played out on the table. All that I\u2019ve had, I\u2019ve given. I do what I can with the cards I\u2019m dealt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I was young, I played with the poker case that my father hid in the back of the game closet. I made games to play for myself. The molecules of my fingertips brushed against the molecules of the poker chips. I was unaware of currency. I didn\u2019t know what we had.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My uncle\u2019s old girlfriend used to have parrots. I was fascinated about her ability to do her hair and her makeup. I was fascinated by her obsession with beauty and wanted to be beautiful too. The parrots watched as I poked around her beauty supplies late at night. I told them not to tell. They told everybody that they wouldn\u2019t tell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In high school, I made a friend that was a bull. He kept going and going and going and never seemed to run low on energy. I admired him. He took me aside one day, gave me an invitation. I asked where and he hushed me. The Little Dipper seemed larger that night. I dropped all my spoons. I gave him my chip and never ended up going. Afraid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bibles on Bibles on Bibles piled up in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Each year I got a new one. Each year, I scribbled my name on the inside and never opened it again. The Holy Day would come every week. I\u2019d take a Bible and go. I\u2019d sing. I\u2019d love. I\u2019d mutter prayer beneath my breath while feeling the poker chips in my pockets, hidden from the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can\u2019t keep this up, my mother would say to me one day when I returned from the O\u2019Hare International Airport. I can\u2019t keep doing this, I would mutter to myself, alone in the corner of my room, flipping a coin, head in the clouds. I would wake up late to texts worried about if I was alright or not from him. I didn\u2019t have the heart to tell my lover that I was starting to drown in doubt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My thumb burned from the lighter in my hand the other day. I inhaled an ember on accident and my stomach ached from the takeout carton sitting next to me on the porch. My smoke billowed into the night air. I sat in a chair that looked like the ones we had when we were kids. I watched my smoke filter and disperse. Wondered if that was all I had to give.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of my lucky numbers was 13 which seemed to be fitting.<\/p>\n I gambled each of my chips this time.<\/p>\n Did I win?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coleman Riggins You will take a Gamble and Win. Lucky Numbers: 13, 21, 23, 33, 47, 51, 60 I keep making gambles. Each of my chips are played out on the table. All that I\u2019ve had, I\u2019ve given. I do what I can with the cards I\u2019m dealt. When I was young, I played with the poker case that my father hid in the back of the game closet. I made games to play for myself. The molecules of my fingertips brushed against the molecules of the poker chips. I was unaware of currency. I didn\u2019t know…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"parent":32,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-303","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/303\/revisions\/308"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}