Different than Before

 

You’ve been through this before.
Make it different this time.

You know the turns by heart —
the same corner, the same hard word,
the same door you swore you’d not walk through,
walked through again, again, again.
That’s the fear: that the wheel comes round
and round is all it does.

But the wheel is not a rut.
Laugh at the small self that calls it ordinary,
this oneness wide as weather —
clear-eyed, smiling, you raise the flag of freedom
over the whole turning thing.

Millions of light years
to the nucleus from which we burst:
the far star and the near heart
are the same fire, telling the same time.

So thick or thin, whatever the day hands you,
make it different.
Make it different.
Make it different this time —

the flying eyeball sees it all
and blesses the courageous with wings.

Rob Chavez
2022 • tuned June 2026
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.