If Plans Were Tangible

I have plans.  (Don't I always?)  I keep them hiding under my bed.  I stuff them away in that dark corner where I can't see them, even when I'm lying flat on my stomach.  There are lots of them.  They fill a box, weaken the seams, shuffle themselves about like disorganized photographs.  Some are photographs. 

I can't reach them unless I wedge myself between the floor planks and the bed frame, prop up my face on the box spring, and wave my hand around in the dark.  But I do this at least once a day.  I pull of the box, add a plan, re-order a section, place one plan before another, color in the night sky of another.   Sometimes I add lipstick to my face, that blue coat that is already discontinued, and hair that stays perfectly in place despite the wind.  Sometimes I make a loan payment, order a kitchen counter for my studio apartment, and take a long sip of hot coffee.  The mug is always hot enough to warm my hands but cool enough not to burn. 

But I inevitably stumble upon some plan from years ago, faded, ripped, unattained.  Or attained but with an attached addendum so heavy that it sinks into unattained.  "Inevitably" only because I don't file away the attained plans in this box.  Those I digest with evening meals; they sustain my everyday like my carbohydrates count - so unnoticed I couldn't even offer a range.  So, of course, my hand grazes the sharp edges of those unattained, still filed away, waiting, incubating, or rotting. 

I recoil.  Shut the box.  Shove it back into the corner.  I notice how easily it glides.  How heavy it has become.