I’m sitting on my balcony on a warm afternoon. I bought this table and chairs a few weeks ago but this is the first chance I’ve had to use it. It’s ironic because this is probably the last time I’ll use them. To me they were a symbol of a future I wanted to create. They sit next to the fruitless blueberries and tomatoes which I so carefully cultivated but which politely refuse to yield the most meager hint of a harvest.

An empty salad bowl and beer sit next to an old notebook full of almost-plans and half-baked ideas. I sift through it, wishing for the inspiration and drive i once had, even if unfulfilled.

Everything has a beginning and an end. Today seems to be the beginning of the end of a relationship that I’ve poured everything into for the last year. Things were done and said that can’t be taken back, and it’s time to go. I look around at all these things I so recently wanted and made for myself; these plants I grew from seeds that refuse to bear the fruit I sought; and all the furniture, the things, the lifestyle that I wanted.

I find myself once again full-circle; disappointed out of another relationship, another house, another town, another life. This one still had the new-car smell and excitement of an unlimited future which seemed so certain.

I watch the faces walking by on the street below, each one so different; so indifferent; and above all, so full of unlikely promise for the next tomorrow with a new balcony on a higher floor and this time all full of plants which don’t refuse to bear fruit. Next time, they promise; next time.