{"id":1037,"date":"2006-06-22T08:29:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-22T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/blog\/?p=1037"},"modified":"2006-06-22T08:29:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-22T15:29:00","slug":"1037","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliashih.com\/?p=1037","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>america the day it went cold turkey off of prozac<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>tonight america feels unsettled<br \/>uneasy<br \/>like a blister on the brink of burst<\/p>\n<p>the fires of the west have not stopped raging<br \/>not nearly enough to mollify the<br \/>slow burn of violence rumbling in its belly<br \/>digging at the seams<\/p>\n<p>the moon hangs high<br \/>exuding indifference<\/p>\n<p>detachment<\/p>\n<p>self-loathing<\/p>\n<p>fear<\/p>\n<p>neglected in its own defiance<br \/>a rotton child plotting with an axe<\/p>\n<p>66 runs like a vein through the heartland<br \/>feeding off the windtossed litter of the desolate masses<br \/>but it&#8217;s the silence that feeds the slow burn<br \/>the silence that eats itself from the inside out<br \/>until there&#8217;s nothing left to be remembered by<\/p>\n<p>on the shoulder near cleveland<br \/>a bum wanders the freeway<br \/>a forgotten man<br \/>following the twisted metal guardrail<br \/>through the tunnel of his existence<br \/>stumbling on a paved road that laps up<br \/>the hollow spaces in between<br \/>but never once choking on the things that<br \/>were meant to be kept<\/p>\n<p>and if you ask him in a way that he knows you exist<br \/>he&#8217;ll tell you<\/p>\n<p>he&#8217;s heard this place whispering<br \/>when it thinks no one is listening<br \/>towards a heaven overrun by sycophantic wings<br \/>flapping to the rhythm of a rhythmless beat<br \/>praying for an upended big rig<br \/>or a six-car clot to end its misery<br \/>and begging someone to touch its emptiness<br \/>to really feel it<br \/>before dropping it back into that dark<br \/>hungry space<br \/>where everything that is found<br \/>was once lost<br \/>and loss is the blanket which covers us<br \/>when our insides becomes too expansive to be named.<\/p>\n<p>and you and i?<\/p>\n<p>we slept in our beds<br \/>and dreamed our dreams<br \/>that shielded us from the nightmares<br \/>never aware of the world outside<br \/>swirling in its own misery<br \/>contemplating its meaning<br \/>until it awoke to find itself a butterfly in<br \/>its own dream<br \/>floundering deeper into a bottomless gulch<br \/>that was never given a name<\/p>\n<p>and when i wake<br \/>you will not remember me<\/p>\n<p>one day i will land softly on the tip of your tongue<br \/>a butterfly kiss that&#8217;s more a twitch than a tug<br \/>briefly reminding you of a truth that precedes the universe<br \/>and you will remember a time<br \/>from somewhere far away<br \/>in some distant memory<br \/>once<br \/>when you were loved<br \/>by someone who existed<\/p>\n<p>and that, in itself, had been enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>america the day it went cold turkey off of prozac tonight america feels unsettleduneasylike a blister on the brink of burst the fires of the west have not stopped ragingnot nearly enough to mollify theslow burn of violence rumbling in its bellydigging at the seams the moon hangs highexuding indifference detachment self-loathing fear neglected in 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