Hindsight drives this very short poem. The title, "One Year Ago Today," sets up a look backward, and the two lines that follow finish the thought. The speaker admits they had no idea how much would change in the year since, and that they now wish it hadn't.
What makes it affecting is how much it leaves out. We never learn what changed, whether it was a loss, a breakup, a move, or something else. That blank lets us fill in our own version, but it also keeps the speaker guarded, as if the details are too painful to spell out.
The second line, "And why I'd wish they hadn't," is a fragment, which makes it feel unfinished, like a sigh trailing off. The mood is quiet and regretful, with a touch of innocence in the speaker's former self, who had no warning. The poem reads like a private moment of looking at an old date and wishing to go back.