{"id":10083,"date":"2022-06-23T20:59:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T01:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/?p=10083"},"modified":"2022-06-23T21:01:48","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T02:01:48","slug":"baseball-by-quynn-kent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/2022\/06\/23\/baseball-by-quynn-kent\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball by Quynn Kent"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Baseball<\/h1>\n

by Quynn Kent with art by Olivia Stephens
\n(Writers Artists Night 2022)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHey Quynn.
\nIt\u2019s me.
\nI\u2019m calling to say thank you.
\nThank you for loving me,
\nFor teaching me how to laugh,
\nFor sitting in silence with me,
\nAnd for being everything I needed you to be.
\nThank you.
\nAnd I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Quynn.
\nI\u2019m not doing well and I need someone to talk to.
\nCan you call me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Quynn.
\nIts like the game of baseball,
\nAnd I don\u2019t want to play anymore.
\nHell, I don\u2019t even like baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Quynn,
\nI don\u2019t know how it happened.
\nWe got in a fight and there was the knife.
\nIt just helps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Quynn,
\noh, I must have gotten that from my bed post.
\nIts pretty sharp,
\nCan do a lot of harm,
\nI suppose?\u201d<\/p>\n

Each time these calls shattered me,
\nLeft me crawling on the ground,
\nUnable to breath.
\nFolding me under the weight of them,
\nDrowning me as I couldn\u2019t escape from them.
\nI remember calling,
\nCrying over the phone,
\nScreaming \u201cPLEASE, NO!\u201d
\nOnly to be met with,
\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry, I just feel so alone.\u201d
\nEach time,
\nWrithing in pain,
\nSaying \u201cyoure not alone,
\nPlease stay on the phone.
\nYoure needed here, more than you will ever know,
\nPlease don\u2019t do it,
\nIt will be worse if you go.\u201d
\nI remember,
\nWracking my brain,
\nTrying to figure out how to save them,
\nWhile the wracking pain I felt
\nThreatened to disarm and then deslave them.
\nFeeling so helpless,
\nPacing in the cold,
\nWondering,
\nHow do I stop this and help them feel more at home?
\nMore at home in their skin,
\nWhen I know their skin crawls,
\nAt the at the sight of baseballs,
\nOr phone calls,
\nOr their childhood dolls,
\nOr life,
\nBecause, hell, doesn\u2019t baseball mean life?
\nBaseball isn\u2019t baseball,
\nBut it\u2019s a game youre sucked into,
\nWithout a say from the age of two,
\nYoure just forced in,
\nAnd don\u2019t want to be there,
\nSo, you quit playing.
\nIt\u2019s not fun.
\nYou don\u2019t want to be here.
\nI remember,
\nCalling their people,
\nTrying to fight while they just didn\u2019t want to breathe no more.
\nFeeling that vortex inside,
\nLike embers or lava
\nSpinning inside,
\na vortex that could blindside,
\nTrying to catch my breath,
\nSo, theirs wouldn\u2019t escape,
\nWilling to give my last,
\nThat they might be willing to stay.
\nAnd I remember.
\nEach time I received this call,
\nIt brought back a young girl in her stall,
\nWith no one willing to fight,
\nNo one she knew who would fall
\nAt the sight of her laying on the kitchen floor,
\nBlood pooling,
\nCreeping toward the door.
\nA young girl,
\nWho just needed someone to listen,
\nBut each time she tried
\nHer words seemed to cause division.
\nShe just needed to be heard,
\nBut instead she just hurt,
\nAnd the last thing she wanted was to hurt those around her,
\nSo why stay if it just inhibited their laughter.
\nI remember,
\nscreaming her name,
\nDying for her to listen,
\nBecause there was someone who needed her,
\nA team who couldn\u2019t play without her.
\nI said
\n\u201cI know you feel alone,
\nAnd that there is no one to pick up the phone.
\nI know you didn\u2019t want to play,
\nAnd it was forced on you every day,
\nBut PLEASE!
\nYoure needed here today!\u201d
\nShe fought me and pleaded,
\nAlready defeated,
\nReady to be done and wash herself of this game,
\nSorry, I mean life,
\nTrying not to hear me call her name,
\nOr the pain in my fight.
\nShe had the knife in her chest,
\nShe had the death certificate pressed,
\nThe blood began to pour,
\nAs she tried not to hear the screams from me begging for more.
\nOne more pitch,
\nOne more bat,
\nOne more breath,
\nOne more spat.
\nBecause,
\nEven in that,
\nShe would be here and not there,
\nIn her pool of blood,
\nOn the kitchen floor.
\nThe knife fell,
\nAs she dropped to the ground,
\nDefeated and broken,
\nWith no one around.
\nI remember,
\nBeing there,
\nTalking her down,
\nOr screaming if you prefer,
\nHearing the knife fall
\nLike the ringing of a lonesome call.
\nI remember,
\nCrying on the floor,
\nA single tear of blood dripping down my chest,
\nAfter knocking on deaths door,
\nAnd not knowing why I hadn\u2019t just barged in.
\nBut some one screamed my name,
\nAnd I emptyhandedly and broken came,
\nTo discover,
\nThe one throwing the pitch,
\nWaiting for me to catch,
\nThe one who would fall,
\nAt the sight of blood pooling after the call,
\nThe one screaming my name,
\nWas called Quynn.
\nNot yet did I know her,
\nBut somehow, she was happy.
\nAnd she was willing to fight,
\nSo, was I willing to fight?<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Baseball by Quynn Kent with art by Olivia Stephens (Writers Artists Night 2022) \u201cHey Quynn. It\u2019s me. I\u2019m calling to say thank you. Thank you for loving me, For teaching me how to laugh, For sitting in silence with me, And for being everything I needed you to be. Thank you. And I\u2019m sorry.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1668],"tags":[1672,1671,1670],"class_list":["post-10083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writers-artists-night-2022","tag-baseball","tag-olivia-stephens","tag-quynn-kent","category-1668","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10084,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083\/revisions\/10084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}