Member-only story
that’s just the way life goes.
a poem inspired by a lyric.
i’m listening to an artist sing the lyrical line,
“life’s better when there’s someone to
show you how” and i’m reminded
that there is no longer anyone
to show me how.
the problem with the status quo
is that it dupes us into subscribing
to a set standard of how life goes.
we come to trust the fact that our parents
will be here for us until we are old like them,
but i’m learning that this storyline is a work of
fiction because i am only in my twenties
yet i parent myself because
my mom is no longer here
and my dad never was.
life is better when there’s someone to
show you how, but now, i’m not so sure
i can bring myself to subscribe to
promises about anything.
there is no standard of how life goes.
it ebbs and it flows — sometimes,
in directions we oppose, but
that’s just the way
life goes.
☽
