The Fortune

I found it in my wallet when I moved my things,

the fortune from a cookie, faded brown,

yellowed, tissue-thin, and I read it again:

patience, it said, or trust, some vague word

for waiting. I've kept it for two years.

Through wallets, through moves, through the small

loss of routine, through the days that repeat.

It never helped. The fortune never helped.

But I kept it anyway, because

it was small, because it fit,

because sometimes you need to carry

evidence that you believed in something,

that the future could be good.

I set it on the shelf and didn't throw it out,

and I thought about how much of my life

is built on things I can't explain,

on objects that mean nothing and everything,

on the belief that if you hold them

long enough, they'll start to make sense,

they'll show you why you couldn't let go.

I found it in my wallet when I switched my pants,

the fortune from a cookie, old and worn,

tissue-thin, the ink faded to brown,

and I read it like I'd never been told:

patience, it said, or trust, some word

for waiting. I've kept it two years.

Through moves, through the kind of loss

that comes from living the same day again.

It didn't help. But I kept it anyway.

Because it was small. Because it fit.

Because sometimes you need proof

that you believed in something once,

that the future could be good.

I set it on the shelf next to the other

small things I can't throw away,

and I didn't think about why,

just carried it forward, and I won't let it go,

and I'll never know why that matters,

only that it does.