Tonight's Poet Corner: Happy New Year

Happy New Year
by Belinda Roddie

In 2010, I was lost in Limerick,
singing Irish songs and rhyme.
In 2011, I came out to my friends
and family for the first time.
In 2012, the world was supposed
to end, but that was fake news.
2013 brought me a bookstore job
to end potential retail blues.
2014 was when I proposed,
and credential classes began.
2015 harkened my first official
teaching job at Fusion.
Fuck Trump: I got married in 2016,
and I also got my credential.
And in 2017, I started public school
teaching 'cause the salary was essential.
In 2018, a yearbook was made,
while the second one gave me conniptions.
2019 brought me a new teaching gig
and a self-published work of fiction.

Throughout it all, there were other things:
My very first apartment and sweet cat,
as well as a number of new friends and colleagues,
which is not at all something to sneeze at.
My cousins had kids, and my friends had kids,
such bundles of joy and light.
And through all the madness of career and life changes,
I always continued to write.

May 2020 bring needed calm
from all the bullshit and chaos.
May it be the beginning of the fact
that our plans to save ourselves will pay off.
May I finish another novel, keep
my job, and make new friends.
And hey, maybe I'll get a bit more fit
to pay tremendous dividends.

So goodbye, 2010s, and let
the Roaring Twenties begin.
Just please don't drag us back into
a Great Depression again.

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