The Only Future I See


I am afraid to make today my home,
I am afraid to buy pillows in the comfort of this moment,
so I try to imagine the future,
I like to think that it is a road lined with flowers in the colors of my youth,
but there are no flowers,
I don’t even think that if there is a road, it is lined with commas.
When I dare my mind to try to imagine the future,
I only see myself,
no bills, no house, no job, no person, no plan,
just myself standing in a field of baby green ampersands,
cutting my hair and then holding a small bird,
and the bird doesn’t sing for me, 
as I promised I would never ask it to,
it just stays alive beside me.
So most days we break apart plums with our fingers like stories,
and we make each day, each plum our home,
and we are perfect and we are whole in this interval of quiet,
where the sun is the only one who gets to see.

-anna sluder

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