The prompt today asked for an “unlucky” poem. I started thinking about all my favourite bad luck sayings and symbols, and the poem just grew from there.

11.

My grandpa used to say “You make your own luck.” A way to get us to work hard, stand up, fly right. I believed it, too. I wasn’t going to be one of those poor, unfortunate souls Ursula sang about in The Little Mermaid. I wasn’t putting my fate in the hands of a sea witch. I push my own luck. Deal my own hand. No deck-stacking, just a girl and her poor choices. The philosophers, they can debate the finer points. Epistemic luck, moral luck, and the reasons all our mouths taste a little bit sweeter when some bitter jerk gets his just desserts. If I make my own luck, do you make yours? Is it like a four-leaf clover pie, with only so many slices to go around? If the power is in both of our hands, whose fault is it that every day together is more black cats crossing, more stumbling under ladders? So much time wasted self-reflecting in this damn broken mirror.