i’m trying to remember what the future looked like

five years ago, four years ago

last year

my recollections are hazy

the way the world looks when i take off my glasses

there’s a dim image niggling in the back of my mind

all spiderwebs and smoke and caffeine tremors

i sat at a desk late at night

staring at a computer

catching the pretentious semicolon

lightening the comma’s load

making words make sense

to the common man

my desk in reality

doesn’t feel like it faces west

as it did in my dreams

although i’ve always been horrible at geography

so it well might

feelings aren’t quite everything

i imagined i’d achieved perfection

or at least the nearest form

a 20-something could reach

not blatantly stated ‘perfect,’ mind you

but implied nonetheless

little clay-and-dust figures always have flaws

it’s inherent in the craftsmanship

where their value lies

and so with me

i’ll never be perfect alive

just like i’ll never see the future clearly

or the past with someone else’s eyes

the past looked at the future and saw the present

which is where i’ll always be