{"id":300,"date":"2024-11-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"at-the-dining-table-at-the-break-of-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/03\/at-the-dining-table-at-the-break-of-dawn\/","title":{"rendered":"At the dining table at the break of dawn"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Madness is a citrusy scent in the air, <br \/>\nso I stir it into murky brown tea.<br \/>\nThe tinkering teaspoon talks<br \/>\nto the walls; the chair sighs beneath me.<br \/>\nThe tea, with milk, curdles,<br \/>\nlike a game of hide and seek with sleep \u2014<br \/>\na waste of waking hours, <br \/>\nacerbic on the tongue.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s 6:00 am and I pack <br \/>\nthe brown bags under my eyes, <br \/>\nfull to bursting, which is to say <br \/>\nI haven&#8217;t slept a wink.<br \/>\nThe rectangular clock <br \/>\non the white wall has lost time.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s slow \u2014 it&#8217;s orange though \u2014<br \/>\nso I will take it to my grave<br \/>\nlike an ancient Egyptian queen<br \/>\nsauntering beyond the veil,<br \/>\njust so I can cheat a little,<br \/>\nplay a magic trick,<br \/>\nhaving lived five minutes more <br \/>\nthan what they would think.<br \/>\nMy ornate headstone would read \u2014<br \/>\n&#8216;Time passes slowly here, <br \/>\nthankfully.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s 6:30 and the house <br \/>\nsparrows are a riot <br \/>\nin my balcony \u2014<br \/>\nrain sodden, guilt ridden <br \/>\ncacophony, which dies as I <br \/>\nslide the door open to ask them<br \/>\nif I can hit snooze on that alarm.<br \/>\nTheir hungry eyes greet me<br \/>\nwith excitement, and I, living,<br \/>\nbarely, between alarms and<br \/>\nanxiety, give them grain, wondering,<br \/>\nwhich of us is smarter.<br \/>\nSleep is tomorrow&#8217;s problem now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Madness is a citrusy scent in the air,   so I stir it into murky brown tea.  The tinkering teaspoon talks  to the walls; the chair sighs beneath me.  The tea, with milk, curdles,  like a game of hide and seek with sleep \u2014  a waste of waking hours,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}