at four,
at five, at seven, at eleven,
i could always see myself
a few years into the future.
i don’t remember how many years, exactly,
nor do i remember if i was ever exactly right,
but i could always feel
my future
was solid
and that gave me
solace.

at 16, the images started to fade
my future seemed to stop after 18
everything felt unknown;
i had no visual to work toward,
no solid internal knowledge
that i’d even be present.
i spent the years leading up to 18 in an
anxiety-ridden daze
and my 18th, 19th, 20th years
in a kind of confused fog
another kind of daze
things were happening
but i hadn’t predicted them
i hadn’t had the insight
i was no longer one with myself

and unknowns are scary

(but somehow, i made it here)

i had a similar feeling about the direction of our country.
i wouldn’t say i predicted the presidential elections
(i still watched the results with baited breath,
and cheered as if i couldn’t believe it
when this white supremacist nation
somehow decided, in a landslide, that this half-black man from Hawaii
was “eloquent” enough to merit their time
and votes)
but i always had those “feelings.”
and even in 2016,
though i didn’t want it to be true,
i felt that we were getting complacent,
i felt that we were setting ourselves up for failure,
i felt that, somehow, this country thought it had done its “good deed” for the century
and now would show its true, horrid orange colors.

and i fell asleep that night knowing what other people didn’t want to admit
and i stopped reading the news
and i stopped listening to NPR
and i re-read Harry Potter throughout that first year,
imagining that we’d defeat the toupee’d Voldemort
through the sheer power of love.

but as this election approaches
i’m back to being 16, 17, 18
the future seemingly unwritten
and that unknown blankness
isn’t just scary because it’s unknown,

it’s scary because it’s either a future of
a political wave we may be able to hold accountable,
or a continuation of this fascist roller coaster
that half the country seems to be enjoying.

and i am struck to near inactivity
(that has nothing to do with my recent sprained ankle)
cuddled under blankets
my heart pounding louder and louder in my ears
as each hour ticks by
closer to the election
closer to the answer
that i still can’t foresee.

so, for the love of everything, vote.
vote like the color of your skin
increases the likelihood of traffic stops
and therein those traffic stops
increase in likelihood of fatality.
vote like your body is rejecting the fetus
you wanted so badly
and somehow your miscarriage
is now legally an illegal abortion.
vote like you’re me, ten years ago
health-insurance-less
because your depression isn’t quantifiable enough
to warrant a medical leave of absence from college.
vote as if you are looking directly into the eyes
of a child
inside a locked cage.

vote as if facts mattered.
vote as if you know the definition of
Separation of Church and State.

vote as if you still had some love in your heart.

[my heart is pounding
so hard
it’s loud
so loud
please let this be the pounding
of some remaining
love]