It’s a sunny day, but not too hot. The kind that’s rare in Nashville in May because it’s usually either ninety degrees or pouring. It’s peaceful, the kind of peace that comes from having your own apartment with a ten foot by ten foot window in a city that likes you. I step outside into the sunshine. Birds chirp in the background. Joy is rare, but I feel it today. I flip open my book, a rip-roaring fantasy that allows me to get lost in it. It’s an ordinary day, but isn’t that the most extraordinary thing in the world?
Cassie Lipton is a poet currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. She has work appearing in The Icarus Collective, Folklore Review, Somersault Magazine, and elsewhere. Instagram: @cassielipton_writes “Sunny Day” won our THE ORDINARY THAT WASN’T contest, part of our 2026 Micromemoir Marathon.