Confession
Confession
When I think about tomorrow,
I see the calculus test I have not studied for
and the five overdue assignments with long-received
fat zeroes. I see the boy I think I love still leaving
my messages on delivered.
(It has been tomorrow, and he,
in fact, has left me on read).
I see the sun rising, my parents driving to work,
my dad swallowing his mother’s death whole —
bones, flesh, and all — as he replies to emails
in Times New Roman font. I see American consumerism
in the thirteen food lines my school opens at lunch,
the mouths of trash cans open with leftovers;
in the greenwashed Tesla cars that have become
a status symbol for those who are not dying
from the lithium mines. I see American blindness
in the genocides we never learn at school;
in the wars that are merely a headline. I see a country
trying to forget itself; of us worshiping wealth as gods
and sleeping on beds on dollars on stolen soil on blood.
I see the immigrants and refugees we do not see.
(They’re aliens, after all,
and aliens don’t exist).
I see my mom taking her father to the pharmacy
for his vaccines, wondering if being sick is worth
327 dollars.
When I think about 50 years from now,
I can’t see anything. Perhaps I followed my dream
of becoming a violinist. Perhaps I didn’t, and became
a poet instead. Perhaps I found another dream;
or I realized dreams were stupid, and I started to let
myself be, and followed the soft-shelled
monster/animal/human
(are these all synonyms?)
in this body. Perhaps, I’m choosing
to write about my silly career choice
instead of my parents
because it’s a much easier thought to have.
(In this society,
my self-worth is also tethered
to the things I can produce).
It is much easier to work a 9 to 5
than it is to love and grieve.
It is much easier to reply to an email
than cry. It is much easier to love
(what you think is love, anyway)
a phantom of a person at a distance,
than to hold them up close and feel
the burning of their flawed, imperfect,
human bodies against your own.
It is much easier to forget than to know,
to consume and devour than to vomit
our sins that reek of our ugliness.
However, today, the sun is falling
through the leaves, the sky is all
the different colors at once, and I’m holding
my friend’s hand as we quietly sit
and sit, and I realize I am in love.
I am in love with the world around me.
With the way the clouds move.
With my mom, my dad, the human souls
like mystical creatures that have fallen
from another dimension,
the poets, the truth-speakers,
the history-bearers. The way my body
gets to feel and experience
it all.
50 years from now,
I will be somewhere,
and I will be loving
and loved.
(I dare not say more).
The Voice
March 2025
Special Issue: Teenager Contest
What does it mean to be a teenager in America in 2025? YWP writers and artists open a window onto their world in this special issue of The Voice. The honest and thoughtful reflections shared here, in ...
Confession
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