Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. Today’s featured poet is Alyssa Lorae Johnson.
Johnson is a Chicago native. This mother of two graduated from North Lawndale College Prep high school and received her bachelor’s degree in social work from Northeastern Illinois University.
She uses her YouTube channel, Bae Khronicles, to talk about love and healthy intimate relationships. Johnson also has a book with the same name as the channel. It can be found on Amazon.
Johnson has recently started to invest in real estate and has completed her first renovation and sale of that same property. Today she shares her poem “Contemplating.”
Every once in a while
I really think is this worthwhile
Life
Really just going thru the motions
Go to sleep wake up and repeat
Like the dish cycle wash rinse and repeat
Most days I’m ok
Others days not so much
You ever get the feeling you in a rut
I feel like a Hamster on a wheel
And some days it gets hard to deal
Life is good but it’s not great
Can’t move forward tryna fix every mistake
They say the past is the past
And that bad days don’t last
But what If they do
What happens when you don’t see a way thru
One step forward two steps back
How in the hell can I keep up with that
It’s like I know what I need to do
but can’t move forward when the past is still in view
A clean slate is what it will take
Cleaning some of this mess off my plate
One step forward two steps back how can I compete with that
Life is good but it’s not great
I feel like I’m always looking for an escape
An escape from this mundane life
It has to be a better way
What am I missing
The feeling that nothings gonna change
Has me so drained
Picturing the life I want
But it’s just out of reach
Why is the million dollar question
Work hard they say and you can achieve anything
But what does that really mean
I know shouldn’t complain
Because life
It’s good
Buuuuut
It’s not great
What would it take
To stop taking one step forward and two steps back
What would it take to stay on the right track
- Yvonne Boose is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
