A Glimpse Into The Future

The future whispers to me in my dreams

     Showing me a glimpse of what I could become

It passes through me

   Like a chill

A warning

   An alarm 

A scream 

    Showing me who I could be

Granting me a vision of one possibility 

   And 

It haunts me

   It . . .

Haunts me . . .

  Pushing me 

To try everything in my power

Not to become him

I can’t become him

    No 

I can’t let it happen

   But I feel him within

Still living 

    Still swimming in between my ears

Still eating at my dreams

    And 

Still pouring gas on my fears

    The flame inside of my brain roars

And I can feel his temper in the rain

   And I can feel the pain in the sky

Thunder cracks

   And I can feel his bitterness in the wind

Lighting flashes

He is stuck in the past

   Stuck as a nightmare

But, yet,

   Just a man

Ay,

   He is just a man 

He is just a glimpse at what I could become

   He is only me

An older copy

   A broke joke with no hope

He burned all his bridges

    Cut all of his ropes

Sitting on top of a throne of bones

    He cast stones at all of those down below

 Without realizing

    He is the lowest of the low . . .

I can’t become him

   I will not become him

But he isn’t just an idea

    He isn’t a hypothetical 

He isn’t a poem

   He is a man

And he slipped into his sad life so easily 

    I can’t slip into the storm

So the future sends me these visions 

    I’ve been thoroughly warned 

I can keep on living 

   Knowing exactly who I don’t want to become 

And when the future shows me her

   I also cringe at her words

Blinded by faith

    Choosing to live in the darkness

Never acknowledging the absurd 

    A liar

An actress 

   A deceiver 

In her words

   ‘A true believer’

She drank a potion that so conveniently erased her memories

    So now she lives in harmony 

With ignorance and myth 

   She embodies it

Lives it

     In a castle she sits

Throwing fits

    Always crying out for more things 

Upset with everything 

   Hating the way the world spins

Condemning everyone else’s sin

    Without ever pointing her microscope within

Sipping on tea

   Enjoying her parties

As he beauty fades

   All that’s left is how she behaves

The mask is dropped

    And we can see clearly everything she is 

And everything she is not

    An ego tied in knots

A soul that was so easily bought 

    A spoiled beauty queen who never grew up

Another vision of the future meant to haunt

But 

In order to see these visions 

   I had to burn everything they taught

   Now their images taunt me

Mock me

   Telling me 

That I will inevitably 

   Become them

That I

   Already am

Them . . .

 So I take my reigns 

And engage with the pain

   I try to fly through the rain

I erase my brain

    And take my pen

And begin again 

    I shine a light on them

And then shine a light on my shadow

    Seeing that I am hallow

I try to fill the emptiness within 

    With more than the superficial 

And 

     With more than the mythical 

Right before I am about to wake up

The voice from the future

Ask me what I know

And I tell it that I know that all dreams end

And also that

My shadow needs a friend

   And I guess

That maybe

I might know

That

   I should try to be a friend to these faces that haunt me

Before my dreams ends.

CH 10/21/24