7-7

I’ve started thinking about the future, yours and mine, splitting and weaving apart. I close my eyes and wonder where they’re taking us. Mine is growing stronger, no longer a tangled desperate strand knotted to yours. It was always hard for me to picture our future. I tried, I wanted to think about what it would be like to wake up every day and find you there. 

But it was hard to see you. I never felt our boat stop rocking long enough for you to settle into my picture. You were hazy and unfocused. Blurry and uncertain. I could never seem to convince you to solidify.

Now I wonder how long it will take you to realize. I wonder who you send sleepy pictures to, and jealousy sweeps up in me until I tamp it down. You’re not mine anymore--not that you ever seemed to really want to be mine. Not entirely. Not on anyone’s terms but your own.

My strand is evening out. I see, for the first time in a long time, where I am going. I’m finally becoming the person I’ve been struggling for years to emulate. My future has sun and the smell of cut grass and hay, coffee on the porch, friends having wine and eating dinner off mismatched cream plates. I go to bed alone, like I always have. I never could fully materialize you in my future, but you were the one I wanted to see. I drink my coffee on the porch in my mind, quiet and content and the chair beside me is empty.