{"id":2360,"date":"2023-06-25T10:46:53","date_gmt":"2023-06-25T10:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2023-06-25T10:48:34","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T10:48:34","slug":"triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/2023\/06\/25\/triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"Triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Featured in the 2016 Spring Issue of Rambunctious<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Triumph\nMichale Schueler, '18\n\nHey.\nHey, you.\nYeah, it's me.\nThe girl who you called too loud, who you told to quiet down,\nBut now I'm speaking out,\nAnd I'll be damned if you don't hear me.\nYou probably don't remember me,\nThough I do remember you down to every dimple, every follicle, every nail bed. \nBecause you were beautiful and gentle and perfect. And I am broken and cracked \nAnd falling into this wide expanse of nothing-and- dammit!- I'm angry. \nBecause you... You have slandered every micron of my person,\nYou have criticized and shredded and torn at every millimeter of my skin.\nHolding me close to the microscope lens so you can see my flaws better.\nBecause you left me naked, flailing my arms in a roaring river of rage \nAnd I can't get out.\nAnd life is swirling around me in a vibrant mural of fire and tears\nBut all I can see is you.\nAnd as the painted infernos burn and crackle around me,\nAll I can feel is the light of your eyes as you smile,\nAnd all I can hear is the way you used to say my name.\nAnd I know you think I'm crazy,\nAnd weird and fat. And I am. You haven't missed the mark.\nBut I am more than the words you've scrawled on my face with permanent marker.\nI am more than the words that you whisper behind closed doors\nI am more than yours.\nI am a flurry of too-bright colors\nAnd too-loud sounds and too-fast words\nWhipping every which way.\nI am a rough tongue that shoots missiles into empty space- \nBecause Mommy told me that was the only way you get by.\nI am imperfectly, inexplicably beautiful,\nI am the evergreen tree in February, living in the the face of adversity, \nI am three wishes from a genie,\nSeven days it took to create the world,\nOne thousand nights in a sultan's chamber, \nForty years across a desert praying-\nI am a writer, a singer, a friend, a daughter. \nAnd I am my own.\nThere. I said it.\nI belong to me.\nNot you, not him, not her, not anyone.\nI am not going to be paralyzed by you at fourteen,\nI am not going to have you listed as an emergency contact \nWhenever I need someone to talk to\nBecause the silence in my head is too overwhelming. I am not going\nTo watch galaxies of red dripping down white forearms,\nDone crudely with a shaving razor when you become too powerful.\nBecause your so-called love is quick and violent and oh so perfectly sculpted \nAnd it kills from the outside in-\nCurdling the blood, cracking the bones and emptying the eyes of all shine.\nBut I will not surrender to that toxic personification of you.\nI will not have your name be the last that graces my lips-\nI will not only survive,\nI will live.\nI will live each day like it is my first and my last-\nWith wonder, with amazement, with speed, with courage \nAnd most of all without you.\nWithout your whispering words of grief and malice. \nWithout your fear.\nI will go everywhere, do everything, laugh, cry, smile, scream-\nAnd it won't matter how deep I go, I will always climb back up and try to make my life better.\nI will no longer sit in the corner at parties-\nI will sing until my voice disappears.\nI will talk the ear off anyone who'll listen.\nI will hang on to the night until it is over.\nAnd I will help that girl over there. With the brown-blonde hair and glasses and so much of you. \nAnd in the end, you'll lose.\nSoon, you'll get a letter from her, too. \n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michale Schueler, &#8217;18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"full-width-single-post.php","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2361,"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions\/2361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jdlitmag.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}