A Poem Written by my Bread in the Oven on New Year's Eve

The new year soon will rise
like dough, soft beneath the palms of time,
a swell of hours leaning into the warmth of what may come.
Bread remembers fingers that pressed it into shape, the weight
of knowing how much salt to bear. One kneads anxieties into
silence, another folds their fears into compliance.
Somehow, there is a grain of truth in beholding the
beauty in the unseen, the unsaid choice to pause,
to craft silence as a prayer, letting it rest, unbroken,
until it forms the words we dare not yet name, lest
they be jinxed. Like moist dough, fear not to take
up space, expanding, a gentle rise, not to impose,
but to sustain. Let the cracks we leave behind echo
the ache we have carried for so long, so when the
new year cracks open, we shall know the beauty of
choosing what to hold and what to release. Because
what do you mean when you say the new year
shapes you and not the other way around?