Day 17: Starting Over

It's day 17 of my 30 days of poetry.  I'm getting tired of hearing my voice.  I mean seriously.

Starting over

Day One always feels like 

heartbreak.

Like facing your nightmare

your fear

your biggest bully

it is resentment,

I'm sorry,

forgive me

and let's try again

rolled up with

scraped together hope --

the sort that's a little stale

from being left over 

in the bottom of the barrel.

Day One is a vaguely formed belief in tomorrow

mashed into the mess of yesterday.

I don't know

how Starting Over is made,

but this life

is nothing more than a series of Starting Overs

that feel a little like failure,

even as you tell me each 

day

hour

second

breath

is a chance

to begin again.

But you don't know how Day One feels like darkness.

Day One smells like mountain

like unknown

like no clear answers.

It tastes like regret that tries too hard to be masked by hope

it is bitter

and does not go down easy.

Day One only happens

by living through the Last Day

and those Last Days:

they will threaten to unbind your skin from your body.

They are cracks in the pavement that ache your bones,

they live in you,

as you start over in Day One

grasping for stars and knowing they're only 

glow-in-the-dark plastic stuck to the ceiling 

with two-sided tape.

There are two sides

to every day

if you'll only dare to flip the coin

knowing there's a chance
that Last Day might still be coming
and knowing Day One is just as hard --

I don't know how we do this.

I don't know why this life is only

an endless rotation of Last Days and Starting Overs,

but I push through the excess,
and I push through the lack,

and by some grace find myself

here
again
starting over

on Day One.