second quarter

i thought i’d be a lot of things
by the age of twenty-five
financially secure, some
kind of young gun prodigy,
or famous, or something
spectacular, with a book
under my belt (or at least
a set of really tight abs)

i’m not sure where i am

i’m only sure that i’m not
really sure at all and
here, at twenty-six,
in the beginning of
my second quarter
century, i’m remembering
and re-learning that
ability to just breathe that maybe
we all have when we’re inside
the womb, surrounding by
warm amniotic fluid
unafraid yet of drowning

i will not ask genius
or greatness of age
twenty-six the way
i asked of each year before

this year i ask only
to re-learn
fearlessness.