It’s going to…..

I often begin my Sundays with a writing prompt - usually poetry. I particulary loved this one. The prompt is:

Write about what this life, this living, has taught you, how it surprises and upends you, or delights and endears you. Write about what makes you weep with joy or sadness, or how it brings out the best of the worst in you. If you need a place to start, try using the refrain from the poem, “It’s going to…” and list all the ways in which this glorious, brutal, profound life is yours. It is going to belong to you.

This came from Amber Tamblyn, filling in for Suleika Jaouad on her beautiful “Isolation Journals” on Substack.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theisolationjournals/p/this-living?r=ldbuz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

It’s going to be a sunrise

over and over again, begging you to pay attention

It’s going to sit you in the back seat

even when you’ve yelled “shotgun” at the top of your lungs

It’s going to bleed pomegranate seeds  

turning your fingers bright red  

It’s going to be a knock knock joke

“orange you glad I didn’t say banana?”

It’s going to caress your cheek, kiss it, lick it

warm you right up

Its going to wake you from a dream, toss you in a shower

tell you to keep on marching

It’s going to make you question everything

before you walk away

come back

walk away again

It’s not going to last long enough

for you to become a three million miler

…..you can’t go everywhere

Its going to kill you

for sure

It’s going to scare you

with its tenderness

and splendor

It’s going to make you wonder

at its wonder

It’s going to burn baby burn

with bad decisions

as you flirt with the arsonist

It’s going to awaken you

with butterfly kisses and piercing alarms

It’s going to hurt

a fine line between pleasure and pain

It’s going to be frittered away

with scrolling and tv and ho hum

It’s going to fly by 

some days will be long

It’s going to break you

rebuild you, and better

It’s going to leave marks

seen and unseen

It’s going to find you bedside 

saying goodbye much too soon

Its going to rock you with its miracles

help you to believe

It’s going to entice you with its magic

force you to look beyond

It’s going to swaddle you

 

It’s going to strangle you

It’s going to recreate you 

from sticks and stones and clay and rain

you will be stunning

it’s going to make no sense

a riddle, a rhyme, an off tune ditty

the answers will come, or they won’t

Its going to entice and thrill and overwhelm

a breakfast of endorphins

you will gobble them up and ask for seconds

It’s going to bore and cheat and scare and beat you

you will want to give up

until….you smell the ocean, see the moonrise, hold a hand

It’s going to make you soft

break through your shell

remind you, repeatedly, you are loved

Its going to make all you know obsolete

progress runs faster than you

It’s going to make you gasp

with delight

fall to your knees

 

It’s going to bring out your “less than” 

when you forget oneness

It’s going to be a paragraph

that should be a word

a phrase that should be better

It’s going to feel like achy joints, itchy skin, and blurry vision

as the parts fall apart

It’s going to feel like broken dreams

with happy endings

It’s going to be raw

When you long for well done

It’s going to be a puzzle

with a piece missing

a lesson in unfinished business

It’s going to be pure bliss

for a moment or five

It’s going to be wonderful and awful

It’s going to be enchanting and disillusioned

It’s going to teach you what you need to know

(on repeat, until you listen)

It’s going to remind you to love

when you hate

It’s going to cause you to laugh

and wipe away your tears

It’s going to be a mystery

much left unanswered

It’s going to be stranger than fiction

and lovely with romance

It’s going to be high peaks

and desperate valleys

It’s going to drown you

and resuscitate you

It’s going to be a sunset

beckoning, on the horizon

It’s going to be all right.