Zebra Seeking Spoons

This year

I will not promise

to become unbreakable.

My body has already taught me

that survival is not loud,

and strength does not always look like climbing.

I will resolve

to listen before I push,

to rest before I disappear,

to forgive the days that arrive empty-handed.

I will measure success

in smaller, truer units:

getting dressed,

answering one message,

standing in a patch of sunlight

like it is an achievement

because today it is.

I will not chase the version of me

that existed before pain learned my name.

I will walk beside the one who is here now,

learning new maps,

rewriting what “enough” means.

Some days my resolution will be

to do less.

Some days it will be

to do nothing and not call it failure.

And if I grow,

it will be quietly—

like roots deciding, without witnesses,

that they are still reaching.

This year,

I resolve to stay.

To keep choosing my body,

even when it is difficult,

even when it is slow,

even when the world prefers miracles

over maintenance.

I am not giving up.

I am choosing a kind of hope

that can breathe here.