Alignment (Twenty-twenty-five)

A year-end poem, carried forward

This poem began as a response to a “one-word” prompt challenge from Veronica Llorca-Smith. Her Substack inspires me, and she very kindly nudged me to turn what I’d shared as a Note into a Post.

So I smoothed the rhythm and let myself have some fun with my Dr. Seuss-inspired prose, shaping it into something meant to be read aloud.

What follows is what I’m choosing to carry with me into the new year—not as a resolution or a reinvention, but as a commitment to stay close to what already fits, sustains me, and feels like home.

Alignment’s my word for twenty-twenty-five—
Not “change who you are so you finally arrive.”
No glow-up, no pivot, no brand-new disguise,
Just living more truly my own kind of wise.

I will not transform the self I already am,
Or quit my day job for a sparkle-stamp scam.
No hustling louder, no racing to prove,
No bowing to inboxes hungry and rude.

I’ve learned my own mind—turns out it’s top shelf;
I like being quirky and quick-witted myself.
No shrinking my sentences down to one line,
No sanding my edges to make others shine.

I write because doing so makes my heart sing.
I wander, I wonder; my words loop and swing.
Will my craft bring me coins or confetti—or not?
It hardly matters—I have a full pasta pot.

There are trips with old friends, city by city,
Alphabet travels—imperfect and witty.
We toast with Prosecco to years fast and slow,
Then steal one last hug before having to go.

Controlled conviviality, laughter on cue,
In jewel-toned dresses of peacock-blue hue.
“Everyone do your squats”—our pact year after year.
We march toward the futures we’re building from here.

There are books by my bed and ideas that gleam,
Unwritten bright pages spun gold in a dream.
I’m shedding old postures, old urges to please;
I wish everyone peace—just please let me be.

I daydream and drift while time misbehaves—
The clock throws a tantrum; deadlines rant and rave.
Subways hum the blues as they rattle below;
My thoughts take the long way home, scenic and slow.

Some think by their doing; some think best at rest,
If it looks like it’s “nothing,” just know it’s a quest:
For questions, for stories, for raising kids right,
With humor and conscience and choices in light.

To be of real service, to deepen the well,
To listen more closely when headlines just yell.
Take what still is working, let the outgrown bits fall,
Use wit where you can—don’t surrender at all.

Buttercups push up through sidewalks and seams,
Uninvited, unbothered, persistent, serene.
They bloom where they’re planted, bright, stubborn, and free—
A small yellow thesis that feels much like me.

I’ll tell stories of family legend and lore,
Of great-grandma, allegedly, from the Rockaway shore.
“She smoked a clay pipe, had two colors of eye”—
Or did she? Who knows. It’s a wink passing by.

When meetings run long, and small talk wears thin,
I walk my mind’s hallways and let stories in,
Forge whens into whys and fan facts into flame,
Till meaning steps forward and calls me by name.

My three-year-old’s wisdom—he says, “Ahhh, that’s better!”
His eyes rediscover the world, brighter than ever.
I learn it again as I move through my days,
With wonder re-earned in familiar ways.

There’s love that’s grown deeper and steadier, too,
Past bottles and babies and long nights we knew.
Just raising the souls we are blessed to have here,
True love grows deeper with each passing year.

Our front door’s a portrait of chaos we weather—
Snow boots and flip-flops all tumbled together.
Mud puddles. New seasons. Lilac light on the wall.
The extraordinary simplicity of having it all.

Alignment means choosing where energy goes,
Humming off-beat rhythms that only I know.
I matter to people who matter to me—
That immutable North Star is what makes me free.

So someday should night take me without a sound,
Let it find me contented, gladly homeward-bound,
Surrounded by books, friends, and children at play,
And I’ll whisper, softly, “I have lived this way.”