When the train is riding along,
Gliding effortlessly on its track
I get queasy, itchy, restless
Just thinking about the termination of the track
The cinematic station with the hankies and the hugging and the happy ending
Ick
If I see something adorable coming down the line, I am likely to set the train ablaze
The story, so far, goes:
Found the guy, the perfect guy
Guy wants kids
Guy would be great with kids
I can picture, in vivid detail
Our children and their
Chicken nugget-less lives
I can hear us calling their perfect little names
A sensible mixture of novelty and tradition
I can see our lovely home
A balance of tidy and lived in
And I want to set fire to it all

Where once was blood, risk, and desire
Now, neat rows of snack-pack celery stalks and peanut butter bites
I want to bake it all in a casserole a la Sylvia Plath’s head

I know
I am preprogrammed to disdain the conventional
In high school, I prided myself in the rejection of Dave Matthews Band
And Prom

But I know now
I am a victim of a system
That lets me believe I was inspired and revolutionary in my thinking
All the while, I was precisely in line with the
Algorithm’s projection
I listened to Kid A in an ’89 Ford Tempo

Now is the time I am projected to resist
Which is why, perhaps
Facebook keeps asking me if I’m nursing
Or if I’m planning a baby shower (Fuck you, by the way)

I am projected to resist
This
Lovely marital bliss

I ride the train
Watching from the rear as the engine car rounds the bend

Always assuming
I am both the passenger
And the conductor