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                      There’s Nothing Special About a Year

                      Published by Philip Athans at March 23, 2026
                      Categories
                      • Poetry
                      Tags
                      • fresh start
                      • memory
                      • new year reflection
                      • Philip Athans
                      • poetry
                      • Routine
                      • time
                      A close-up image of a fingertip tapping a glowing smartphone screen. Around the finger, small white envelopes float and blur across the screen, suggesting emails being sorted through. fresh start Text: There’s Nothing Special About a Year, Poetry, Philip Athans

                      Image created on Canva

                      This exercise
                      of deleting a year’s worth of emails
                      that I do
                      every January
                      so I only keep
                      five years’ worth
                      of notices of library books ready to be picked up
                      packages shipped, delayed, delivered
                      questions I have no recollection of asking or answering
                      communications mostly mundane
                      because everything
                      is mostly mundane
                      though so important at the time
                      on the day
                      that I didn’t delete them right away
                      but saved them
                      until the first day
                      of year six.

                      That doesn’t sound like much of a fresh start.

                      Does it?


                      Read more like this here!

                      • Letting Go – Poetry Reading
                      • Everyday Travel – Poetry
                      • The Other Day – Poetry 
                      • Old Friends – Poetry
                      Philip Athans
                      + postsBio

                      Editor and author Philip Athans has been a driving force behind varied media including Alternative fiction & poetry magazine and Wizards of the Coast. He lives and works in the Pacific Northwest.

                      Find Philip on Bluesky.

                        This author does not have any more posts.

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