{"id":4024,"date":"2022-09-08T16:42:33","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T20:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2022-09-08T16:42:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T20:42:34","slug":"a-poem-for-a-thursday-193","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/08\/a-poem-for-a-thursday-193\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #193"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"
Photo by Becca Schultz<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Clint Smith is an American poet and writer. His 2017 poetry collection, Counting Descent<\/em>, was a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards and won best poetry book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. He is also the author of a narrative nonfiction book entitled How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. <\/em>It was a New York Times <\/em>Bestseller and one of their Top Ten Books of 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
you wake up first on the left side of the bed, kiss my cheek and let\nyour feet slide onto the coolness of the wooden floor, which\nsometimes creaks depending on how cold the weather is but it is\nthe beginning of autumn so today it is soft like a distant whistle,\njust like we were eight years old and this was the end of recess but \nreally you and I have never stopped playing, and I feel like that's\nwhat makes this so great, we laugh as often as we breathe, but I\napologize if I am getting off topic, this is supposed to be a poem\nabout how I listen to you pitter-patter across the room as the sun\nrises and I still pretend to be asleep, my eyes shut while I hear the\nsplashing of water against skin from the bathroom and these are \nthe moments when I feel most lucky, when the steam is sliding out\nfrom behind the door and you emerge looking like everything that \nhas ever mattered and I can't pretend to be asleep anymore\nbecause how could I keep lying about how remarkable it is to get to\nsee you each day before the rest of the word does, now by this \ntime I have gotten out of bed and started looking for the iron\nwhich I can somehow never seem to find and it's not like I need it\nanyway, it's not like my pants are that wrinkly, but sometimes\nroutine feels nice because it is familiar and you are something I\nhope remains familiar for as long as I keep waking up each\nmorning you know the mornings full of NPR and exercises we're \n a bit too tired to do, but we do it anyway because one day we'll\nhave kids and hopefully they'll have kids and we want to be\nhealthy enough to run around the park with them while they\nask us questions about how plants grow and why dogs seem like\nthey can run forever, I know I keep talking about forever but it's \nhard when that's all I see in the mornings when you kiss me and\npitter-patter across the floor while I pretend to sleep\n\nEach Morning Is a Ritual Made Just for Us\nClint Smith<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clint Smith is an American poet and writer. His 2017 poetry collection, Counting Descent, was a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards and won best poetry book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. He is also the author of a narrative nonfiction book entitled How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. It was a New York Times Bestseller and one of their Top Ten Books of 2021. you wake up first on the left side of the bed, kiss my cheek and let your feet slide onto the coolness of the wooden floor, which sometimes creaks depending on how cold the weather is but it is the beginning of autumn so today it is soft like a distant whistle, just like we were eight years old and this was the end of recess but really you and I have never stopped playing, and I feel like that’s what makes this so great, we laugh as often as we breathe, but I apologize if I am getting off topic, this is supposed to be a poem about how I listen to you pitter-patter across the room as the sun rises and I still pretend to be asleep, my eyes shut while I hear the splashing of water against skin from the bathroom and these are the moments when I feel most lucky, when the steam is sliding out from behind the door and you emerge looking like everything that has ever mattered and I can’t pretend to be asleep anymore because how could I keep lying about how remarkable it is to get to see you each day before the rest of the word does, now by this time I have gotten out of bed and started looking for the iron which I can somehow never seem to find and it’s not like I need it anyway, it’s not like my pants are that wrinkly, but sometimes routine feels nice because it is familiar and you are something I hope remains familiar for as long as I keep waking up each morning you know the mornings full of NPR and exercises we’re a bit too tired to do, but we do it anyway because one day we’ll have kids and hopefully they’ll have kids and we want to be healthy enough to run around the park with them while they ask us questions about how plants grow and why dogs seem like they can run forever, I know I keep talking about forever but it’s hard when that’s all I see in the mornings when you kiss me and pitter-patter across the floor while I pretend to sleep Each Morning Is a Ritual Made Just for Us Clint Smith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4027,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions\/4027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}