My resolution for 2025: I’m going to figure out who I am and why I was given the gifts I was given. I’m going to finish the novel I’ve stopped and restarted multiple times. Maybe I’ll figure out why I am not as kind or giving as I want to be. Maybe I’ll figure out what it is I actually want.

Why is my hair pink, anyway? Obviously because I dye it pink, it doesn’t grow that way. But why? I feel like it’s always been pink, whether that was my doing or not. At one point, I thought dramatically that it turned pink from my broken heart, but now I think, just as dramatically, that my heart never really broke.

It’s probably somewhere in the middle. That’s usually where you find truth.

Anyway, Happy 2025, everyone! May we all find something new and shiny this year.

Stranger
By Michelle Garren-Flye

I want to know you better, stranger.
Why do you tick on even when beat?
I know you quicken when in danger
that so far you’ve managed to cheat.

Breaking you once was a simple chore
but now you’re smart and made of stone.
Like the pig’s house, you’re something more
than straw, but you survive there alone.

I dread with anticipation the day we meet,
come face-to-face and I can no longer pretend.
If only we could shake hands on the street,
perfect strangers right up ‘til the end.

It’s no use, it must be confessed:
I feel you beating away in my chest.