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.