Confession

When I think about tomorrow, 

I see the calculus test I have not studied for 

and the five overdue assignments with long-received 

fat zeroes. I see the boy I think I love still leaving 

my messages on delivered.

                                                     (It has been tomorrow, and he, 

                                                              in fact, has left me on read). 

I see the sun rising, my parents driving to work,

my dad swallowing his mother’s death whole—

bones, flesh, and all—as he replies to emails 

in Times New Roman font. I see American consumerism

in the thirteen food lines my school opens at lunch, 

the mouths of trash cans open with leftovers; 

in the greenwashed Tesla cars that have become 

a status symbol for those who are not dying 

from the Lithium mines. I see American blindness 

in the genocides we never learn at school; 

in the wars that are merely a headline. I see a country 

trying to forget itself; of us worshiping wealth as gods 

and sleeping on beds on dollars on stolen soil on blood. 

I see the immigrants and refugees we do not see.

                                                                        (They’re aliens, after all, 

                                                                           and aliens don’t exist). 

I see my mom taking her father to the pharmacy 

for his vaccines, wondering if being sick is worth 

327 dollars. 

When I think about 50 years from now, 

I can’t see anything. Perhaps I followed my dream 

of becoming a violinist. Perhaps I didn’t, and became 

a poet instead. Perhaps I found another dream; 

or I realized dreams were stupid, and I started to let 

myself be, and followed the soft-shelled 

monster/animal/human 

                                                                     (are these all synonyms?)

in this body. Perhaps, I’m choosing 

to write about my silly career choice 

instead of my parents 

because it’s a much easier thought to have. 

(In this society, 

my self-worth is also tethered 

to the things I can produce).

It is much easier to work a 9 to 5 

than it is to love and grieve. 

It is much easier to reply to an email 

than cry. It is much easier to love 

                                                      (what you think is love, anyway) 

a phantom of a person at a distance, 

than to hold them up close and feel 

the burning of their flawed, imperfect, 

human bodies against your own. 

It is much easier to forget than to know, 

to consume and devour than to vomit 

our sins that reek of our ugliness. 

However, today, the sun is falling 

through the leaves, the sky is all 

the different colors at once, and I’m holding 

my friend’s hand as we quietly sit 

and sit, and I realize I am in love. 

I am in love with the world around me. 

With the way the clouds move. 

With my mom, my dad, the human souls 

like mystical creatures that have fallen 

from another dimension, 

the poets, the truth-speakers, 

the history-bearers. The way my body 

gets to feel and experience

it all. 

50 years from now, 

I will be somewhere, 

and I will be loving 

and loved. 

                                                                         (I dare not say more).