Morning Keeps the Change

Change is the rumor that turned out to be true, the one tenant that never quits the lease, and yet we keep acting like it just moved in yesterday. We ask for it at the ballot box, at the mirror, in whispered prayers, then flinch when it starts rearranging the furniture of our days. This is me trying to get honest about how we live as both magnet and shield toward it, how we court it, resist it, and slowly turn into it in all the shapes it takes.

⠀

We say we want change, throw open the door,

new laws, new lovers, new towns on the map—

but wince when it steps on the dust on our floor,

starts folding our habits, untying each strap.

⠀

The body learns by failing, then it mends.

Old certainties grow brittle in the light.

We bargain with the future like a debt,

and time keeps cashing in with or without us.

⠀

new skin

old fear

messages unsent

mornings that feel borrowed

small yes, then backstep

the mirror taking notes

⠀

Change braids through our days

like water finding low ground,

no single hero

steering the whole wide current—

only hands learning to swim.

⠀

thin ice on puddles

footprints rewrite the surface

morning keeps the change