The future was better - written in 10 minutes

Cameron Gregg wrote this vertiginous piece in 10 minutes, inspired by Trey Speegle’s artwork “The Future Was Better” and the group list of words generated in our Saturday Prompt of the Week Salon. This raw, unedited material is a fantastic demonstration of the power and suggestiveness of the writing you can generate when you’re not trying to “write well.”

(See more of Trey’s amazing work at treyspeegle.com.)

Jagged memories of the future, can you hear me?

The twisting needs that smother desire, can you release me? 

Was it better in the mind? The dream? The half-digested plan that walked out from the desert to mingle with the gods at the crossroads between the sunset and Father Time’s pocket of regrets? 

What else can this be paid for with? This better future that welcomes abandonment. That winks at the chance to lap up the cries of hope that emanate up from the ground. 

Time lapses. A generation renews itself in the thrashing fists of lives lived in endless figure-eight bickering. 

Then I thought, Where will I have arrived at? How much time do I have left before I can say that once I thought the future would be better in my sweet daydreams of youth, to become a gust in the leaves of my waking reality?

I sit in the center of an unlikely island, as the surrounding roots find night. 

With you there, past slipped time, awaiting the weird honeymoon to come.