Good Trouble

This poem is for Ron, who made a joke about AFGOs - something I hadn't heard about before, but what made me laugh at its acute insight. And then I thought about it, how growth opportunities are also spaces where we come to discover: perhaps I'm not who I thought I was. Perhaps there is more to me than what I'd believed.

It's a relief to revise our stories about ourselves - or as my friend Naomi puts it, to no longer define ourselves by our deficiencies. Who are we when we soften this identification? The title is a nod to John Lewis, and his prescient encouragement to stir up good trouble in the world.

Good Trouble by Karly Randolph Pitman

For R.H.

You laugh at his description of
good trouble: another fucking
growth opportunity. You recognize
the groaning truth, the ways you can tire
of being stretched. But another part of you
rejoices, welcomes the fire of another birthing.
You feel the inner yes, the leap to remember
you're never what you think you are,
that your vastness can't ever be confined
by your mental tally of your successes and failures,
your good and bad points, your small confinements.
This part of you is an eagle, or sword, or a crane –
slicing through your own narrow view,
soaring beyond what you think is you –
what you think is possible when you
welcome your breaking expansion.

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With a grateful heart, Karly