We Will Change Diapers and Hold on For Dear Life
We Will Change Diapers and Hold on For Dear Life
Dominic Laing
We will change diapers
and hold on for dear life.
We will get blackout drunk
and hold on for dear life.
We will scream our
camel-sized trauma
through the eye of the needle
that is tik tok,
and hold on for dear life.
We will burn candles
and bake bread.
We will plant sequoias
and buy assault weapons.
We will forget,
and remember,
and forget again,
and we will hold on for dear life.
We’ll kiss our partner
on their neck, their chest,
their lips and forehead,
and we will hold on for dear life.
We will ignore our neighbor.
We will ignore our family.
We will ignore ourselves.
We will take up our cross.
We will take up roller-skating
and painting and wood-etching,
and we will hold on for dear life.
We’ll protest and take prom photos.
We’ll get abortions and
get married and get dogs and
get electric cars and get
tattoos and piercings and real estate licenses.
We’ll worry about active shooters
and climate change and
inflation and war and
Fox News and CNN and the NBA finals.
and we will hold on for dear life.
We will tag freeway signs
at two in the morning
and hold on for dear life.
We’ll swim and stretch
and feel the tightness in our backs
slip away,
and we will hold on for dear life.
We’ll learn the piano
and how to shuffle cards.
We’ll learn preferred pronouns
and how to load a handgun.
We’ll drive buses
and we’ll choose countertops
and lose our temper.
We’ll choose Instagram over God.
twitter over God.
We’ll choose to not expose our kids
to the mix of anxiety, joy and guilt
we felt every Sunday at church.
We will choose God.
We will click our ruby red heels
and hold on for dear life.
We will call to say I love you
and hold on for dear life.
We will blow out birthday candles
and pull weeds
and taste salt tears at
the corners of our lips.
And we will hold on for dear life.
Dominic Laing
Poet
Dominic lives in Portland, Oregon and believes storytelling is the dual grace of knowing and becoming known. He's a writer because when he writes, he feels communion...and also because Glenda Vanderkam, his sixth-grade English teacher, read one of his short stories and told him to keep at it. Dominic's officiated three weddings, run two official marathons and broken one finger. He loves Jenae (whom he married in the peak-COVID days of 2020), stained-glass windows, and gluten-free waffles. His work is published in Ruminate, Hinterlands, Madcap Review and Ellipsis Zine.
Photography by S. Tsuchiya