{"id":528,"date":"2023-07-01T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-01T15:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/?p=528"},"modified":"2024-01-13T03:50:05","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T03:50:05","slug":"the-sentiment-of-citrus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/the-sentiment-of-citrus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sentiment of Citrus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Published in Issue 111 of <a href=\"https:\/\/34thparallel.net\/\">34th Parallel Magazine<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve never felt my age<br>never worn the years weary<br>but one thing I\u2019ve realized<br>is I can measure my life<br>in slices of an orange<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first, each slice<br>meticulously peeled apart<br>so not a single fragment<br>of pouch or pith<br>remains on the juicy flesh<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because in childhood<br>everything is sweet<br>and nothing gets in the way of joy<br>and someone is always there<br>to peel it just the way you like<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a teenager<br>the whole thing is cut<br>juiced and scrapped<br>craving the sweetness but<br>lacking the patience<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Young adulthood<br>harbored no oranges<br>He didn\u2019t like the way they smelled<br>Bright astringent citrus lingered<br>out of the control he demanded<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there\u2019s now<br>on a lunch break from the grind<br>each section peeled slowly<br>chewed whole<br>and never lasting long enough<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I used to only like<br>the very best<br>of the orange<br>But now I take the sweet<br>with the tough<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And silly as it sounds<br>it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever felt grown<br>up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published in Issue 111 of 34th Parallel Magazine I\u2019ve never felt my agenever worn the years wearybut one thing I\u2019ve realizedis I can measure my lifein slices of an orange The first, each slicemeticulously peeled apartso not a single fragmentof pouch or pithremains on the juicy flesh Because in childhoodeverything is sweetand nothing gets in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bayleewrites.com\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}