New Beginnings....

A new January, a new beginning,

soon, clocks will strike twelve, and calendars will turn.

We’ll toast to clean slates before us,

as the past dissolves and the future burns,

And like the year before,

we’ll swear to keep it burning this time.

~ ~ ~

But, time’s a wheel spinning,

pulling us back to familiar patterns.

Resolutions written, ambitions declared,

yet this year won’t differ from the last.

Changes promised will fall asleep to the hum of past habits,

and the silence of present actions.

~ ~ ~

We’ll walk paths we swore we wouldn’t tread,

wear chains we swore we’d break.

Like an old romance,

we spend the year with our past,

making the same mistakes, on a different calendar year.

The fire we swore to keep alive will burn us whole.

~ ~ ~

By March, sparks will dim and old temptations will come knocking,

resolutions will become a fairytale we hope for.

By June, lights will barely shine.

We’ll be drowning again, unable to swim,

but still basking in the promises we made ourselves.

~ ~ ~

By September, our goals will become autumn leaves, accepting the fall and the same old endings.

We’ll begin to cling to a new year,

with the hope of a new beginning and a different ending.

~ ~ ~

And just like that, December will roll around again,

and we’ll await that midnight chime filled with fireworks.

When calendars change again, we’ll look on in hopeful cheer.

Another year, another chance for new beginnings.

~ ~ ~

But we must ask ourselves, before the clock chimes,

why must our new beginnings begin with a clock?

What if the changes we seek aren’t time-bound?

What if they come from within, anytime?

Would we continue the cycle, or face ourselves, break the chains?

Till our new beginnings are a thing of the past?

For we have begun, and old endings no longer haunt us.