The Next One
A poem for the next small step.
Three years ago today, I learned that sometimes survival does not arrive like thunder.
Sometimes it arrives as one breath. One trembling knee. One step so small no one else would think to call it heroic.
These are two readings of the same poem, recorded a year apart.
One is gentle. One is raw.
Both are true, just in different weather.
Watch whichever one finds you where you are.
Then the next one.
Someone once asked me, “What step counts most now?”
I paused like air before a hymn,
then said it.
The next one.
The next small step a person takes
on shaking knees.
Next one.
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Still taking things one stanza at a time.
The Next One
By K. Jacob Wilson
Half-awake, I spilled my coffee, Then laughed like it was done. The kitchen clock lit up the wall,
Too bright for early sun.
I wiped my sleeve, I shook my head, As if the day had won. Then held the mug and let it be,
And carried on. Next one.
I left the porch light burning low, In case of any one. No knock arrived, just wind and hush,
Yet still it stayed till sun.
No sermon, only habit there, A door left half-undone.
A foolish faith that if you’re lost,
You’ll find your way back home.
Then later, life will change the scale, And make you feel like none. A single word can tilt a room,
And leave you half-undone.
A voice can look you up and down, And make you feel like none. As if you’re something used and tossed,
Once useful, now just done.
It hurt. I smiled. Not because I
Could keep from flinching, one. But kindness was the only thing
I had that day. So, one.
No sermon back. No clever line.
No halo, neatly spun. I held my tenderness like keys,
Because, yes, that’s my tone.
Later, alone with quiet walls,
When heat and pride were done,
I opened up my journal page,
And wrote it down. Just one.
I wrote, there’s only two ways this Sort of cruelty is done. Either they’ve never known the cost,
How steep a day, undone.
They’ve never lived inside this fear That shows up before sun. They’ve never watched a body turn
To weather, close and known.
Or someone once spoke over them With words that left them none.
And cruelty became the tongue They learned to live on, young.
So I kept kindness in my hand, A door left on, for one. Not to be noble, not to win,
Just to break that old run.
A pause. A softer, truer word.
A light that asked for none. So they could step outside that script,
And find their way. Next one.
Then came that inner road again, That asks for breath, not done.
The finish line kept moving back,
As if it fed on “one.”
Not glory, not a better name, Not winning, not the sun.
Just making me a little more
The one who won’t lie down.
I want the world made kinder, yes, If only for just one. A stranger passing through a day,
Who feels less alone, one.
So distance learned my measured steps, And breath became my sum.
I counted days in smaller breaths,
Till day felt almost done.
Some days I reached the place I meant, And thought the work was done. By noon the ground grew strange again,
And “fine” came back undone.
They knew me as the steady one, Who smiles beneath the sun. They missed the private tries I hid,
The losses, one by one.
They never heard my quiet truth, I kept as my own one.
I’m scared. I hurt. I doubt I can.
I do it. The next one.
That anyway became a craft, A quiet, daily one. Not triumph, more a steady vow,
Begin again. Next one.
Anything worth doing is still
Worth doing half-undone. The point is not to shine for them,
It’s just to get through, one.
So I went looking for a rail, A handhold when undone. Not comfort dressed in sugar words,
Just truth that asked for none.
Books, then, the ones that do not soothe, No lullaby, not one. They didn’t send me meaning back,
They taught me how. Next one.
Some nights I shut the cover hard, My pulse a snapped-off drum. Some nights one sentence made a crack,
Where breathing wasn’t war, not one.
A notebook waited by my ribs, A plain, unshowy one. Not to be art, but to be proof, I lived through this, undone.
I wrote the parts no one claps for, The shaking, half-undone. A good day sometimes looked like this,
Just getting through. Next one.
Be gentle, I wrote, not because The world will, not one time. But hearts that stay in armor break,
And leave you half-undone.
Don’t put your worth on trial now,
Before your bones are done.
A body isn’t evidence,
You stand there, half-undone.
If all you do is breathe, I wrote, That is not less, it’s one. The tide comes back by inches still,
It does not ask for sun.
The body keeps its ledger close, It writes till you’re undone.
I don’t erase the lines it makes.
I keep witness. Next one.
Above my bed one sentence hung,
So plain it stung the sun.
I exist as I am. Enough.
Some nights I felt undone.
Some mornings it was bread and salt, It held me till the sun. Some mornings it was only wood,
Still I leaned. The next one.
Then love arrived the way it does, Not fireworks, not the sun. A voice said, I have prayed for you,
And something came undone.
Not instant cure. No heavens split, For me, not even one. Just mercy, strange and plain as air,
When I can’t hold on, done.
Recovery was not straight up.
It looped. It stalled. Undone. A good day wore the face of fine,
A hard day came. Next one.
And still beneath the rise and drop,
Beneath what’s lost, undone,
There was a constant, hard to name,
Like coals that won’t be done.
Not joy, not peace, not bravery, Not hope, not even one. More like the part that will not go
Out, though the days are done.
Maybe it’s duty, plain as shoes, Set facing toward the sun. Maybe it’s love that won’t turn off,
A porch light, stubborn, one.
Maybe it’s just the pulse that says, Not yet. Not done. Not one.
The quiet thing that tries again, When you feel split, undone.
Someone asked what step counts most now,
What footfall makes life won. I paused like air before a hymn,
Then said it. The next one.
Not first steps with a trumpet call, Not victories, not one. The next small step a person takes,
On shaking knees. Next one.
Because the corridor stays long, Because the line moves on.
Because the only freedom left,
Is what you choose, then done.
And if I leave a thing behind, Let it be small, as one.
A handhold in the dark for those Who think hope’s gone, undone.
The past is not a sentence,
The future isn’t done.So take the step that comes to you,
Make it count. The next one.
So when the night goes thin again,
When warmth feels far from sun, Keep faith with breath, not certainty.
Begin again. The next one.
And when a cruel mouth makes you small,
And leaves you half-undone,
Choose kindness like a door unlatched,
Then let it choose. Next one.
May winter glass turn into window.
May light return as sun. And if it doesn’t, still, my friend,
The next one. The next one.
So when the kettle starts to sing,
Before the day feels done,
Stand there a moment. Breathe it in.
The next one. The next one.
Epigraph:
Every saint has a past, and every sinner a future.
So we make the next step count.
Yours in wit and wonder,
-KJW
