The future is an open wound. It’s a wasp crawling up your arm on a warm summers day. In fields of golden corn and sunflowers, she evades my gaze yet her body itches for my touch. The absent lover, always creeping in the shadows. Dormant for so long, it’s so easy to be passive, to keep those valves of truth shut tight. Yet when you keep them under lock and key, sooner or later they’re going to burst. Rage consumes all. Neglected dreams will bring you down. Those faces that waste so much precious time. Those feelings they delight in rubbing in your face. They don’t mean a thing. Their hopes and desires, they mean less to me than geography. None of it’s real, not a single ounce. The atoms that comprise us, just an illusion to help us sleep at night. I don’t worry about these humans because they’ll take care of themselves. I worry about the universe instead, and the infinite ways it might rip apart leaving me with nothing yet again. I worry about the sex that sits perched on the edge of the bed. Those wanting teeth. Those judgemental mouths always tasting how I’m feeling. Dead for so long, but now awakened through self-belief and the kindness of others. They should’ve given up on me a long time ago. My silence so selfish, they stuck around when others dispersed. It’s so strange how everything keeps on going without you. How the seeds of time blossom without so much as a drop of water. I thought I was awake, but I slept right through it. Seasons spent in hell. Seasons spent alone. Even though the sands of time have eroded so much, I still remember your smile. It shines amongst the stars. It burns in my dirty heart.