I want to be free
To get up in the morning, pee
And not come back to bed.
We have no future together, he said
Drawing a line in the sand
Of my chest, my nipples
Rival castles divided by decree.
What did he see in the leaves
Of his tea, prognosticator,
Diviner. Sooth is not so soothing
When it’s removing what was built
Even temporary, on a beach,
Facing erasure, wave after wave.
How much farther is the future.
Is it a grave, is it a disease, is it
Looming is it booming is it bust.
We will see each other there
In the future. Not see as in see
But see, will we be visible
To one another or blank, blank
As a blank we fill in later
With the wrong amount on a
Receipt we’re turning in
To be reimbursed. What were
We worth. What did we cost.
In the future will it matter
What is lost. It will not be
A human trait to remember.
We will have made ourselves
Redundant, inefficient, and
Less desirable than what can
Be invented, ordered on a screen.
In the future we’ll check in
Yet never see each other. Lost
In the lobby of a grand hotel
Where nobody works. In the hotel
Of the future nobody wakes you.
In the hotel of the future nobody
Makes the food. It tastes of nobody.
It doesn’t matter, I says,
Futures are over-rated. Castles,
Too. And you, man, and you.