We can see the future by living in it
as a sequence of losses that reveal
in their absence what we once had
Although you begin again with a new fearless
belief system the belief in systems is elusive
Perhaps monotheism was invented
by a high school senior with mono
or in the act of replacing aspirations
with the set of minor whatevers
you already pulled off A column
of checks waiting for the to do list
But that just replaces the tension of failure
with the tension of a coverup The former
being more interesting because it contains
within it the possibility of success
Often being unable to hear over the rush
of air is the allure You can’t break
an unmade promise or pretend someone
hasn’t given up on you when they say
I love giving up on you but the distraction
of rubbing your hands on a cold day
gives you some pure conviction that won’t
rise to the challenge of not dying but will
get your mind off it for a moment
The future arrives as it always does This time
in the moment the story abandons any possibility
of redemption and in the abandonment
makes redemption possible as when we shake
each other's lapels and declare the jig is up