when i was nine
i opened a new tab called LIFE
and left it loading.
this seemed responsible.
the adults were always saying
when you grow up
as if growth were a software update
scheduled somewhere after dinner,
as if the body would ping:
version 18.0 available
bug fixes include
fear of calling strangers
inability to become who you meant
to become
and i believed them.
i believed in later
with the bright stupid faith
of a child pressing SAVE
on a document he has not written.
later was industrial.
later had cranes.
later was building my apartment
above the city,
lifting the piano through the window,
installing the person i would love
beside the person i would finally deserve to be.
later had excellent credit.
later woke at 6:00 a.m.
and drank water.
later knew what to say
when someone cried.
meanwhile i was allowed
to wonder.
what if astronaut.
what if musician.
what if i became the kind of person
who owns one good knife
and uses it for tomatoes.
what if famous.
what if forgiven.
what if my father got old
but not like that.
every question opened another window.
i dragged them all
to the edge of the screen
and assumed the screen
had no edge.
**
ATTENTION, CITIZEN OF THE FUTURE:
your unlimited trial of POSSIBILITY™
has been renewed automatically.
no action required.
no action required.
no action
required.
**
at sixteen i postponed the guitar.
at nineteen i postponed france.
at twenty-three i postponed becoming
the kind of person
who did not postpone things.
this was funny for a while.
lol, i typed,
watching one year
eat another year
with perfect table manners.
the calendar did not laugh.
the calendar had thirty-one little teeth
and excellent attendance.
it chewed
monday
tuesday
wednesday
then sent a notification:
memories from 5 years ago
and there i was,
younger than the person
i had once considered young,
standing in somebody’s kitchen
holding a plastic cup
like evidence,
saying
soon.
**
O SOON—
small god of the unfinished,
patron saint of bookmarks,
gym memberships,
half-charged batteries,
come down from your cloud storage.
show us your face.
show us the factory
where the unused hours are kept.
we have receipts.
we have passwords.
we have been very patient.
**
no answer.
just the refrigerator
clicking on in the dark.
just my mother texting
a photograph of the dog
with more gray around his mouth.
just the building across the street
losing one lit window,
then another.
some nights
the whole city seems to be updating
without asking permission.
pipes knock.
sirens comb the avenue.
an ambulance drags its red cursor
through the sleeping blocks.
somewhere
a child is awake
inventing adulthood.
he thinks it is a country.
he thinks he already owns a ticket.
i want to message him:
do not confuse the map with an arrival.
delete.
too dramatic.
hey. just fyi. time is real.
delete.
sounds like dad.
you will not always be becoming.
delete.
cruel.
the cursor blinks.
blinks.
blinks.
a tiny white machine
hammering nothing.
**
i still wonder.
this is the embarrassing part.
i still see possible lives
standing outside the glass:
the book,
the train,
the hand i should have held
before pride updated the terms,
the morning i could wake
and finally begin.
they look almost mine.
that is what hurts.
not that the doors are locked.
that some are still open,
and opening them
will close the others.
**
so here is the new policy:
no immortality
without written approval.
no storing your blood
in the word eventually.
no telling the heart
to circle back next quarter.
you there—
yes, you
with forty-seven tabs open,
you with the beautiful
buffering face,
choose something.
lose something.
click.
**
the screen asks:
Are you sure?
for once,
i am not.
i press it anyway.