It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
When you’re nearing 60, escaping sounds good.
A quantum jump, not the other kind.
They tell me not to think about it, but
I keep hoping I wake up in another life 
so relieved there are tears 
and a huge smile, reset. 
It’s happened before. I was being convicted
of a crime I didn’t commit. Then I woke up!
I need it to happen again.
Maybe it will again.

It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
One of them is might be good.
They tell me to focus here:
wearing underwear again in the locker room,
or walking naked, flexed. “You got this!”
To get there means hope,
but every permutation is a possibility,
most of them breath-taking.
When am I going to wake up,
relieved I’ve escaped, a smile on my face,
reset but somehow, still here?

It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
I’m told there is no future, not really.
“It might never get here.” 
The past can’t get here either.
“Not if you don’t let it!” 
Nothing to plan for, 
nothing to run from.
Just this Now. Always capitalized. 
A typewriter. Music. Peace.
Maybe a frozen fruit smoothie.
I should have a frozen fruit smoothie.
I’ve always liked those.

It’s exhausting preparing for every future.

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