Issue 13: Tomorrow is uncertain

musings on the new year

Happy New Year! 

I’m starting 2022 with the commitment to work more gratitude into my daily life; to say thank you more, to say I love you more, and to take time to rest and enjoy being alive. 

One habit from last year I hope to bring into the new year is reading before bed a few nights each week; I’ve spent most of those nights reading virtually with friends, sitting quietly together on Discord. Some of my favorites have been On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson, All About Love by bell hooks, and In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado— all highly recommended to add to your reading list this year.

Another habit I’d like to continue would be writing as a daily practice, whether that be journaling, poetry, pattering away at my novel, or just a free-write of my running thoughts (I filled up two notebooks in 2021!)

I hope whatever your goals are for the year, that you allow yourself self-love, gratitude for all that you have, and rest between the working hours.

The following poem was written using the poetry prompt from last week’s Poets & Writer’s “The Time is Now”. 

---

TOMORROW IS UNCERTAIN

tomorrow is uncertain
of that I’m sure and its face

is the unfilled unused unloved
chair in my home office
 
I water the pileas take the
keys button my coat 

for a walk avoiding the mouths
of others visualizing sunsets in

Roma the mountains resting
upon the tectonic earth 

I have shaken the tethers that 
bound me but I buckle at the knees 

at the wind chill of change
I wake each morning unlearning

the path paved the worn one that
reminds me I know nothing of

suffering yet I’ve learned everything
of hatred I have watched men

kneel on necks blood billowing
from severed frames seen the sea

in its rise flood the airwaves
with wreckage witnessed 

towers fall
now I understand 

human beings have learned 
everything and nothing

so what is the use of 
wild centuries

if we are hurtling 
toward overwhelmed cities

overflowing with sharp 
teeth hollow walls 

boiling architectural marvels 
where nobody lives 

where can home be 
if not my untamed aorta 

siphoning thick brain blood
forming the cyclical thoughts

why is my papa 
unlearning my name

just as soon as I am 
learning myself?

the curse is carrying that 
knowing for one more walk

still, I wish I had never known
anything at all

---

What have you unlearned this year? And what have you learned? 

I have learned that life is traveling at a speed I find difficult to follow without rest, without love.

\\

Megan