Alter Future Past

A poem by Douglas Caraballo

We will all go down
if you don’t say exactly
what you are thinking.

Bear the weight of isolation now,
to relieve the weight of regret later.

We will all go down
if you do not say exactly
what you are thinking.

I want to hear it from your lips,
not embodied in icons,
Or distant mouths.

I want to hear it from the butcher,
and the construction worker,
from a friend, a father, a wife,
an enemy.

Before the past becomes the future.