Crooked Old Tradition

For my response to Prompt #41, Side by Side, I found my inspiration for this found poem in one of my favorite Imagine Dragons tunes "Yesterday" and a title-less poem--technically a quote--by Rupi Kaur from "the sun and her flowers."

Here's to change--

     the year is done.

Here is the month I decided to shed everything not deeply committed to my dreams--

     all these years I've been searching for who I'm supposed to be.

I fold the good days up and place them in my back pocket for safekeeping--

     No tomorrow without a yesterday.

The day I refused to be a victim to the self-pity--

     it's a crooked old tradition.

Goodbye to yesterday--

     draw the match, cremate the unnecessary.

I've been the truth; I've been the lie--

     I unscrewed all the mirrors from their walls, no longer needed to see myself to feel seen.

Here's to my future--

     here I go, stronger and wiser into the new. 

     

Oh, I'm a hopeless crash collision--

     I spread the past three hundred sixty-five days before me on the living room carpet.

I'm my own volition--

     I pour myself a glass of warm water to cleanse myself.

I wrung self-doubt by its neck--

  You can reach for the moon.    

I danced so hard my heart learned to float above water again--

     go astray; fade away.