2025: When Only Words in Verse Healed All My Hurts and Living in the Present Showed What the Past Meant
- Data won’t mend a divided nation and won’t define its glory.
In 2025, I traded success
for poetry,
when neither pay nor prestige addressed
the emptiness in me
Only words in verse
healed all my hurts
with proven consistency.
In 2025, I traded “But what will people say?”
for my motley family
awakening nearly every day
to the judgment of community.
Only my family’s love
raised me above
provincial anxiety.
In 2025, I traded “Yes! I’ll do it!”
for “No, I can’t right now,”
when what I did was often met
with more than one furrowed brow.
Only I know
what I need to grow
beyond what others allow.
In 2025, I traded what we were
for who we are today
To you, both times are blurred.
So, I chose to step away.
Only living in the present
showed what the past meant
no longer has its say.
In 2025, I gave up teaching
those who don’t want to be taught.
Hoarse from wasted preaching
when all I said, they fought
Only saving my words
for those among whom I’m heard,
saying little among whom I am not.
In 2025, I gave up guilt
for not meeting others’ shoulds
telling myself not to wilt
when I couldn’t do what they deemed good.
Only I know what’s right
for any given plight
in my small neck of the woods.
In 2025, I gave up shame
for not living up to expectations
stopped taking part in the blame game
among my friends and relations.
Only looking past fault
at the whole gestalt
lets me forgive our limitations.
In 2025, I traded bio measures
for how I perceive my health.
I won’t deny myself all life’s pleasures
for our medical system’s wealth.
Only I can decide with certainty
what feels right for my body
and what it needs to be well.
In 2025, I traded deliverables
for deep, restorative rest
recognized that just because something’s do-able
doesn’t mean it calls for my best.
Only rest gives me pause
to decide if a cause
is worth my endurance being put to the test.
In 2025, I traded information
for experience and story.
Data won’t mend a divided nation
and won’t define its glory.
Only narrative shifts
perspectives at rifts
exposing manufactured worry.
In 2025, I stopped watching time
concerned about what might transpire,
surrendered myself to the moment’s rhyme
and whatever it chose to inspire.
What 2026 will hold
remains to be told
but I hope to trade less to find more
to which I can aspire.
A college lecturer of sociology, writer, radio host, community collaborator, mother, daughter, and wife, Lata Murti is a lover of words and how they bring people together. She believes there’s no one right way to share your truth, as long as it reminds someone, even if just the truth-teller, that they are not alone. She lives in Santa Maria-Orcutt, California with her husband, two teenagers, and dog, and her parents just a few miles away.