Today we lay the path
for the sins we will commit tomorrow,
not knowing them as sins,
not yet.
They are only choices,
small turnings
taken without thought,
a word withheld,
another spoken,
the moment we could have stopped
but did not.
Tomorrow is easy.
Tomorrow never comes.
It remains safely ahead,
one more sunrise,
one more promise
that there will still be time
to choose another road.
And when we wake
tomorrow has disappeared again,
become today,
while another tomorrow
waits conveniently
beyond our reach.
So we borrow from it.
A little more time.
One more excuse.
One more stone laid
upon a road
we swear we never meant to walk.
Until tomorrow
comes looking for us.
Not quietly.
Not with the patience
we had come to expect.
It rears,
teeth bared,
and bites deep enough
to make sure
we are paying attention.
I am here.
And it wants answers.
Not the answers we rehearsed,
not the reasons
that sounded sufficient yesterday,
but a reckoning
of every stone,
every turning…
every moment we knew—
or almost knew—
and walked on anyway.
Then we look back.
Yesterday knew nothing of this.
It trusted us.
All those selves we once were,
certain they were moving forward,
certain that tomorrow
we would somehow
know better,
do better,
be better.
I wonder how many times
I have made that promise.
How many yesterdays
have followed me here,
carrying debts
they never knew they owed.
We cannot return
to warn the person we were.
Cannot touch his shoulder,
turn him from the path,
tell him the smallest step
still leaves a footprint.
We can only remember him
and know.
Today
I lay another stone.
I cannot yet see
where it leads,
what name I will give it
when I stand beyond it
looking back.
Perhaps tomorrow
I will call it nothing.
Perhaps a mistake.
Perhaps a sin.
But tomorrow
has a longer memory
than I pretend…
And when it finally comes
demanding its answers,
the cost will reach backwards
through every person
I have been,
leaving my yesterdays
to pay the price
in the heart
of tomorrow.
8/25/2026
The Words That Got to Me
How many yesterdays have followed me here, carrying debts they never knew they owed. *Brilliant concept and turn-of-phrase! But tomorrow has a longer memory than I pretend… *OYY! SUCH truth in this!!! the cost will reach backwards through every person I have been, *Very ominous.
This leaves no room for emotional error. There's no "but I didn't know..." that will be accepted. It's an Accountability Poem if ever there were one - and it's brilliantly done. I wish I'd had this in my possession to bestow to my daughter when she was in her early teens. It could have saved us BOTH so much heartache!! There's nothing like seeing something in black-and-white that drives the important points home! Great depth, intuition, understanding and awareness within these wise lines, Love. Excellent work. xoxo