By Maya Garcia Fisher

The future is covered in aluminum foil

dipped in chocolate and gold

and consumed whole. 

The future is getting drunk and  

yelling something about how I 

am going to live forever off

strangers’ apartment complexes,

is getting high and staring 

at the ceiling, again, forever. 

The future is plant vines

that have grown so long and thick 

they strangle me in my sleep, 

not the first or last American woman 

killed by something she would die for 

and the future is ass tattoos 

and lipstick smeared

over teeth and mascara running 

down faces

and the flimsy cotton 

of cheap dresses paired

with the expensive silk and 

organza of lingerie 

we cannot afford but buy anyway, 

is absolution, 

is redemption,

it is here, 

is here, 

is here.

The future is stops into the city 

for the last time this millennium;

the future is erupting into a thousand

tiny little pieces that will 

leave cuts on the soles

of our feet; is an exploding

crystal ball above me 

as we slow dance. 

The future is foreheads and 

palms slapped against table tops 

when it all becomes too much,

the diagnoses that will only

make everything harder, 

and also more sad. 

And the future is the internet, 

is a million and one 

souls who will never see the sun,

and entire days spent in front of the TV 

watching shows we can’t stand 

and don’t find funny. 

The future is finding another job 

I know I will hate

and quit in three months, the customers

that make me insane 

and funny in the same breath.

The future is finally learning how to spell

the bourgeouis 

so we can articulate the very

people who kill us even here, even so.

The future is when I grow up

I want to be something 

gorgeous and untouchable. 

The future is when I grow up I want

to be anything other than this. 

The future is four cups of morir sonando 

when I’m sick and

cups three cups of tea that will

tell me if I ever find love. 

And the future is 

dying alone, but knowing

that in the future, there is always 

a loneliness, 

a loneliness, so you’d better get

used to it, and the future 

is being human 

until I can no longer stand it, 

until it kills me, and no longer

fearing that return to the gracious unknown 

I was before I got here. 

The future is my final breaths;

a sacrilegious testament that life

was not a dream, that I was 

here, that I lived, 

and lived, 

and lived after all

how the future is both awful 

and glorious at the same time.