Talking to My Younger Self by Ann Christine Tabaka

Heed well;

for my words are but a concept in your young mind. 

We cannot pass through the barrier of time. I am 

a memory that you do not know. Looking back  

many years, we traveled seventy journeys around 

this sun; seventy-one, counting heartbeats within our 

mother’s womb. Remembering all the tears shed; all 

the mountains scaled; all the sins buried deep.

I tell you, do not look back, do not fear the future, 

do not give up hope. Your passion and your desires 

are held in a secret trove; hidden from all but you 

and me. They are not to be revealed to a hungry world, 

ingesting each weary breath. Past-lives tumbling off the 

edge of an eyeblink. It is too late for regrets. It is never 

too late to change. We have shared a history that no 

one else can share. We touched the sky, we sailed through 

clouds. Icy oceans held us up, as we were about to sink.

We loved, we lost, we survived this far. We do not see 

where we are going, but we know where we have been.

Listen, yes listen to the voice within. Your future is my past.

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is the winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year, her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021,” published by Sweetycat Press. She is the author of 13 poetry books. lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking.  Chris lives with her husband and four cats. Her most recent credits are: Sparks of Calliope; The Closed Eye Open, Poetic Sun, Tangled Locks Journal, Wild Roof Journal, The American Writers Review, The Scribe Magazine, The Phoenix, Burningword Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Silver Blade, Pomona Valley Review, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Fourth & Sycamore.

*(a complete list of publications is available upon request)