{"id":137,"date":"2025-09-01T06:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T06:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/2021\/11\/08\/ive-been-a-vegetarian-for-years-and-years\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T21:31:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T21:31:26","slug":"life-fired-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/?p=137","title":{"rendered":"Life Fired First"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Last night, I cried so hard
\nthe moon dimmed in pity.<\/h2>

I'm not okay.
And I'm tired of making it rhyme
just so it sounds pretty enough for people to read.
The truth is ugly,
even when I try to write it,
the paper keeps flinching like it's afraid of what I'll say.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/h2>

How do I explain to someone
that the ghost that haunts me wears my face?
That I'm walking around breathing,
but I haven't been alive since I turned 16.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I miss myself.
Not the person I am now,
but the child I used to be
before life handed me pain with no return address.
I've been breaking so long,
even my bones don't recognize each other anymore.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Ever heard your own thoughts scream at you?
That's how hard it gets every 3 am.\u00a0
I lie awake listening to the sound of my own breath,
wondering how long I can keep pretending it doesn't hurt to exist.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/h2>

I beg the nights for mercy,
\"just one good sleep, please.\"
But there's no redemption here.
I lost to life,
and life lost me.
The end.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n <\/section>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I cried so hard the moon dimmed in pity. I’m not okay.And I’m tired of making it rhymejust so it sounds pretty enough for people to read.The truth is ugly,even when I try to write it,the paper keeps flinching like it’s afraid of what I’ll say. How do I explain to someonethat the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-author-campbell","category-campbell","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campbell.imaginarium4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}