Poetry by Yoda Olinyk

Scott Dexter CC



​
big

I’m so tired. I keep saying 
I want a break--
which is to say,
I want a smaller life.

and then I write all day
and I go to therapy
and I do the work
and I stay sober for one hundred days
and I fall in love 
and there is no smaller life. 

Only big life. 
Only big love.

I guess I will be
perpetually tired

​


Yoda Olinyk loves to make people comfortable, which is too bad because she is a poet. Yoda believes poetry should reveal our sharp corners and writes mostly about addiction, recovery, and grief, and is currently working on a book about reproductive rights in Canada.  Yoda's poems have been published with Button Poetry, SamFiftyFour, Third Iris, Sky Island Journal, Free Verse, Ink & Marrow, Sage & Cigarettes, and Quail Bell. Yoda works full-time as a writing coach and book doula, and also wrote a full-length, best-selling memoir called Salt & Sour. You can find more of Yoda's work at www.doulaofwords.