Poetry: “IN THE FUTURE, THE GIRL ARRIVES & NEVER LEAVES” by Sydney Vogl

IN THE FUTURE, THE GIRL ARRIVES & NEVER LEAVES

there is a fridge full of ripe mangos. 

nothing to cut them with, so i use a spoon.

we paint the bathroom tiles bubblegum. 

fill the tub with rosewater & let our animal bodies drown.

we don’t keep honey in the house because we don’t need it. 

instead, she dips her fingers in my tea.

everyday is sunday. 

sometimes it rains, but never for long.

when it does, i have a new book waiting.

i could wait exactly four days like this.

& i do.

when it’s over, she is holding a paper bag full of lemons. 

in the future, men have stopped killing us, so we invite them over for dinner.

open a bottle of wine & breathe through our mouths.

our lips dot burgundy without suspicion.

each night, the sky drapes lavender.

nik is not dead. 

he’s 27 & tan. 

i’m not afraid because i don’t know how to be.

there is no girl who split herself on a sidewalk & never called again.

there is no boy muscling himself inside me on a bed i don't recognize.

on monday, he’s not in class.

he doesn’t wink at me knowingly.

in the future, everything is soft.

even the pocketknives plush after years of neglect. 

About Sydney Vogl

Sydney Vogl (she/they) is a queer poet who lives and writes in San Francisco. She is the winner of the 2021 AWP Intro Awards & was chosen as the poetry fellow for the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing. Their work, which was nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net, has been published in Ghost City Press, Hobart & is forthcoming in The Tusculum Review and IronHorse Review. She currently serves as a poetry editor for The San Franciscan Magazine, curates a Bay Area Reading Series, and works as an educator to Bay Area Youth.