A New Year’s Poem

To another turn around the sun.

You’re here. You’re alive. You’re breathing.

Let your heart break wide open. Every day. You’ll find a space there for what happens next.

Advocate for others who are suffering.

Watch sunsets from rooftops, from beaches, from bridges, from fields.

Dance. Move until you feel it in your bones. You are human.

Create new worlds. Find awe in the mundane. Live in the sublime.

Make your art. At all costs, make your art.

Volunteer. Raise your hand.

Be as generous as you can.

Feel and love like your life depends on it.

Don’t abandon yourself, ever, for anyone or anything.

And if you do — find your way back to yourself.

The archives of history and language, of who we are, tell us that our loneliness, our despair, have been felt by others since the beginning. Find communion with them. There is infinite poetry there.

Run toward reciprocity; walk away from shame.

You can never lose what is truly yours. The rest isn’t meant for you; let it go.

Look up at the stars — the shared blanket of vast, shimmering cosmos around our fragile home.

See beauty in what’s broken.

Get still. Listen. Something is calling for you.

Strive. Stumble. Fall. Pick yourself up again. Dust yourself off.

Grieve it all. Grief is just love in another form.

Step into the unknown. Have the courageous conversation. That’s where the magic happens.

Stand up for justice. You’re the one meant to carry the flame.

Make someone feel seen.

Stay wild.

Resist the binary. Swim in the grey. There are no hard edges between us and the world.

Go rogue and find joy — that’s the real rebellion.

Honor those we’ve lost by reimagining a more humane and equitable future. We must choose this path.

Remember, what you do for yourself dies with you. It’s what you do for others that will live forever.

Life is full of contradictions, as are you. Embrace complexity. Yours and someone else’s.

Be willing to hold the brave, imperfect, and breathtakingly human connections that light up the darkness. Ultimately, no one can make it without this.

Find your fire. Our imagination sets us free.

Protect our only home. Our dying planet. And all the living beings we share it with. This is our most essential work. In the end, we have only each other.

• by Flynn Coleman, January 1, 2023