Plans – Fiction

Plans

by John Kilkelly
illustration by RAchelle

Plan A was to get good grades
Go to college
Enter the work force as a streamlined professional
Work like a dog and enjoy the fruits
of what is honestly earned

Plan B was to drop out
Blaze across America in a beat-up Trans-Am
robbing gas stations, liquor stores
and die charging over a cliff pursued by
The Police Force of Glory

Plan C fell somewhere to the side
On the fraying edge of caution
Confined to the heady escapism of
Driving slightly over the speed limit
Bounded by fears of booted cops
and frowning relatives

Plan D was only slightly better
And involved embezzlement
Unsure of white-collar prisons
Not knowing if the bunk-bent horror
Would really happen
The crime went unplotted

Plans shift like nomad
Beggars in the sandstorms of order
They evaporate like
Broken dreams
And leave you
Making more