{"id":187,"date":"2025-04-16T23:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T23:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/?page_id=187"},"modified":"2025-04-24T00:09:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T00:09:51","slug":"there-was-no-one-who-lies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/poetry\/there-was-no-one-who-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"there was no one who lied"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jennifer Choi<\/span><\/p>\n

we were leaving the forest\u00a0<\/span>
\nwith a rope in hand, so we could avoid the full terror.\u00a0<\/span>
\njust having something to hold onto,\u00a0<\/span>
\nleaning into the endless despair.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

we dreamed that everything would return to its place,\u00a0<\/span>
\ncrows flew from the low sky,\u00a0<\/span>
\n& the night unearthed a grave of its own.\u00a0<\/span>
\nsome felt relieved by the presence,\u00a0<\/span>
\nwhile others felt cursed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

we couldn\u2019t put a bell around the cat\u2019s neck.\u00a0<\/span>
\na voice broke the long silence.\u00a0<\/span>
\nthe rope split in two,\u00a0<\/span>
\n& some grabbed the part that split as a sign of agreement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

if our destination was the same, we would meet,\u00a0<\/span>
\n& after a quick exchange, they drifted away.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the group slowly thinned,\u00a0<\/span>
\n& with every split in the rope, its strength grew stronger.\u00a0<\/span>
\neven when it crumbled into dust in my hands,\u00a0<\/span>
\nor when it turned into a snake, coiling around my limbs.\u00a0<\/span>
\nwasn\u2019t this the same path from before?\u00a0<\/span>
\neven if we abandoned the rope & ran,\u00a0<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nthe forest would never know where to arrive.\u00a0<\/span>
\nthose digging up graves would often turn into crows & fly away.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\u201cwhat kind of heart created this forest?\u201d<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>
\nthey muttered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from a distance, someone looked down on all of it,\u00a0<\/span>
\nhis hands trembling with sorrow, gripping a rope like a chain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jennifer Choi we were leaving the forest\u00a0 with a rope in hand, so we could avoid the full terror.\u00a0 just having something to hold onto,\u00a0 leaning into the endless despair.\u00a0 we dreamed that everything would return to its place,\u00a0 crows flew from the low sky,\u00a0 & the night unearthed a grave of its own.\u00a0… Continue Reading there was no one who lied<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_theme","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-187","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187\/revisions\/255"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}