i’m being judged by this Southwest Airlines napkin because it asked me where i wanted to go
I ask for hard pretzels and cranberry juice with ice.
The flight attendant sets a napkin on my tray table,
Printed at the top in bright blue letters is “Where do you want to go?”.
I’m sure it’s just an ad campaign.
Right now, I’m on a flight to Florida, so I want to go to Florida.
I don’t have any other plans. I don’t have any plans-
Y’know, everybody’s asking me that question these days?
Question: “Where do you wanna go?” for college.
Where’d you apply? What’s your top choice?
What will your major be?
When I was 3 foot 5, instead of 5 foot 3,
My answer would’ve been MIT for engineering!
Asking and answering questions? And getting paid for it?
What better life could there be?
There was always an answer
And If I didn’t have it, it was out there to find.
But as I grew,
and I started asking different questions,
I discovered instead
a
jaw unhinged ready to swal-low me whole kind of feeling;
a
snapped electric cable spit-ting sparks kind of feeling;
a
hey the world is ending i’m a-lone kind of feeling.
I
became a
S p i n e l e s s p i l e o f
worry
on the floor.
One question led to another question,Elaborate here Combine these are we keeping these? Add here clarity Repetitive change approach
Led to a hundred open tabs,
Two hundred wasted days,
And a computer that could win “slowest to load” in the county.
Question: “Where do you wanna go?” with your life.
What will you achieve? What career will you choose?
What salary will sustain the lifestyle you want to have until you die?
My parents say I don’t know what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck.
But won’t I have to learn?
Otherwise, won’t I waste every weekend locked in a room with a mirror- practice calling time of death without my voice shaking?
Won’t I save my pennies to empty half my bank account into a stock that could drop tomorrow?
Won’t I devote my life to a bottom-feeder role at some office two miles from my childhood home?
Will my greatest joy be when someone brings cheap pizza into the break room so I don’t have to pay for lunch?
What will my life be?
What can my life be?
What should I be preparing for?
These questions toll in my ears like church bells
But I can’t leave them at the church on the corner.
Will they always be ringing?
I don’t want them to be.
They can’t be.
I have to decide, right now. I have to find an answer. I have to-
Y’know, I used to love questions.
If all the answers are temporary anyway,
Maybe I can just love questions again.
A question is what changes your trajectory.
Maybe what should matter is having the courage to ask.
My hard pretzels lie unopened. My ice has melted into my cranberry juice.
This napkin…
This Napkin.
I’ll start… soon.Elaborate here Combine these are we keeping these? Add here clarity Repetitive change approach
Today.
I’ll start today.
Today.
Today-
Today, I’m asking myself this one question.
Question: “Where do I wanna go?”
Answer: …forward.
Avyn Harris
Artist Statement
I was drawn to Avyn Harris’s poem because it captures emergent anxieties in the face of conflicting expectations and evolving goals in the context of a turbulent world. Sometimes the best next step is simply to step forward, be in the moment and be willing to change course as new paths present themselves in our lives. That resonated with my own experiences of living, learning and working to date. I wanted to find a way to utilize the full text in a way that was true to Avyn’s text while trying to embody the tension of making decisions in pivotal moments, while also trying to bring a little bit of optimism by way of color and a little whimsy.
Young Chicago Authors
Young Chicago Authors offers high-quality programs that nurture artistic development, social-emotional learning, and academic success through poetry and performance. Its Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival is the largest of its kind in the world, gathering over 200 youth poets from across Chicago, Chicago-land, and Northwest Indiana. The festival centers storytelling over competition and fosters listening, empathy, and creative risk. The ten poets featured here advanced through the 2025 festival and offered lines that were impossible to ignore.
Poetry Foundation
This program is made possible with support from the Poetry Foundation, which amplifies poetry and celebrates poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry.
