You Might As Well Love
Pádraig Ó Tuama
photo credit: Trevor Brady
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a Poet, theologian, and presenter at Poetry Unbound with On Being Studios. Listen as he reads his mindful, thought-provoking poem, The Facts of Life. You can read along with the text below.
The Facts of Life
That you were born and you will die. That you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not. That you will lie if only to yourself. That you will get tired. That you will learn most from the situations you did not choose. That there will be some things that move you more than you can say. That you will live that you must be loved. That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of your attention. That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be. That life isn’t fair. That life is sometimes good and sometimes better than good. That life is often not so good. That life is real and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning given where meaning’s scarce. That you will learn to live with regret. That you will learn to live with respect. That the structures that constrict you may not be permanently constraining. That you will probably be okay. That you must accept change before you die but you will die anyway. So you might as well live and you might as well love. You might as well love. You might as well love.
-- Poetry Unbound; 50 Poems to Open Your World is forthcoming from WW Norton (USA) and Canongate (rest of world) in October 2022. You can pre-order the Norton edition already.