NOW by Sacha

NOW

We buy beautiful things

and immediately tell them:

Not yet.

Apparently,

today isn't special enough.

Champagne glasses

for the wedding.

Silverware

for the milestone.

That beautiful blue dress

for my baby's graduation.

We assign everything

a future.

And when the future

we assigned them

never comes,

they stay tucked away

as if they too

have something to mourn.

So bring them out.

The glasses.

The silverware.

The blue dress.

Maybe the life

worth celebrating

is the one

that actually arrived.

Sacha is a New York–based poet and writer whose work explores identity, memory, womanhood, relationships, and the contradictions of everyday life. A Latina woman of color, she writes in English and Spanish and is the author of The Collection and La Colección, bilingual companion books of one-line reflections on identity, resilience, and becoming.